Stephanie was signing her books yesterday (April 20) at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Really I should say “for Porter Square Books”, because the event was moved across the street to the Masonic Temple because they expected more people than the bookstore would be able to hold. I got there late, but there were so many people ahead of me in the line that it’s pretty clear that it was good that they didn’t try to do it in the bookstore.
The Masonic Temple is a good old early-Twentieth-Century building. I didn’t get to check the cornerstone, but I bet it was built before the 1930s. It could go back to before 1900, for all I know, but it didn’t impress me as that old.
The front doors were closed when I got there, at 5:40 for an event that was scheduled from 4:30 to 6. I had left work at 4:20, bicycled home, caught my breath, driven from Newton to Somerville (slow part: traffic light next to Alewife T stop on route 2 — it took at least four light cycles), left Arlene off at Charley’s house, and driven through Teele and Davis squares to get to the Porter Square shopping center parking lot.
I was in line behind a very petite 5’1″ woman named Omly (or that’s how she asked for her copy of the book to be signed) who was knitting toe-up socks in blue and self-patterning yarn. I brought my gray and maroon mittens, the first of which needs only a thumb and the second of which had a good start of the cuff when I got to Cambridge, and had almost a whole cuff by the time I got to the front of the line. Omly and I were talking about our knitting. The people behind me were having a spirited discussion of the Duke lacross team. I didn’t get into that conversation at all.
Stephanie seemed to be getting a little worn out by the time I got to the front of the line. I was very pleased that she remembered having seen me before and that I gave her (for TSF) some handmade wooden knitting needles. At that point it was getting awfully close to 6:30, which the Masonic Temple people had set as a real deadline for the event to be over, and there were still a half-dozen people behind me, so there was no time for more talk except to say a quick hello to Patience and Himself (who has a normal name! But those beans aren’t for me to spill.) Oh! I think I recognized Kimberly, and checking her blog I see she was there, but I didn’t get to say hello because she was way ahead in the line and had disappeared long before I got through the line.
I have read the first couple of chapters of Knitting Rules and I’m really enjoying it. So, if you have a chance to get a copy and have it signed, by all means do so, and get there early enough to hear Stephanie talk.