Gypped

I always feel gypped in the Spring when it's time to turn my clocks ahead one hour due to the switch to daylight savings time.  I do it early so I can get in the mindset of the new time.  So that means it's already nearly 11 PM to me and time for me to think about getting ready for bed.  I learned a few years ago from having gone to a sleep study, that I need 7 hours of sleep each night.  My internal clock knows this, too, and often times I wake up on my own at that point and can't fall back to sleep.

I had such a busy day today that I won't have any trouble at all falling asleep.  While waiting for my friend Tanya to pick me up to go see the Yarn Harlot, I finished knitting another Button Hat.  We made our way down to the Detroit Public Library, where we off-loaded our merchandise and since we were the first ones there, we picked a great table for our display.

It got really busy, really fast and soon the hall where we were was filled with knitters from all over.  It was amazing.  One gal came from Iowa, another from New York, and load of knitters from all over Michigan.  At one point I looked up and there was Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot herself, shopping at the different vendors' booths.  What didn't sell was packed up briskly at 12:50 so everyone could get down to the auditorium to hear Stephanie's lecture.

The whole outing was organized by a member of the Black Sheep Knitting Guild, Kelley, who is also a librarian at the Detroit Public Library Main Branch.  She worked diligently to pull the whole thing off ~~

saving our group a couple of the front rows (to the chagrin of many other attendees) and was so tickled to introduce Stephanie ~~

who was gracious and glad to be in Detroit on a gray, rainy, glum day.  She let us know that she had discovered through her dinner on Friday at the nearby Traffic Jam Restaurant, that Americans can actually make good beer.  Being a Canadian she had previously held the view that the only good beer was a Canadian beer.  Nice to show her we can get it right.

As she does at every lecture she gives, she took a picture of her current sock project with the crowd in the background.  I got a picture of her taking a picture ~~

When she was done speaking those who had books to sign lined up in the auditorium to wait their turn ~~

There had been about 400 people in attendance for the lecture and I bet about 100 of them lined up with their books.  One of our guild members, Jodi, made her way to the table with her daughter ~~

Stephanie was gracious about signing everyone's books

and talking to each person as they stopped and even got up to have her picture taken with her fans.

From there we packed up our things and headed over to the Traffic Jam to join a group from the BSKG.  After an enjoyable meal, we stopped at the Avalon Bakery so Tanya could get a loaf of their yummy bread and some date bars, and then we were off to City Knits, to try and find a way to use the coupons they had given everyone at the Yarn Harlot lecture.

Their store ~~

is located inside the Fisher Building, which was designed by Alfred Kahn back in the 1920's and is home to the Fisher Theatre, where many of the premier plays and entertainment acts take place.  It is a fabulous example of art deco design and I snapped a picture of one of the beautiful light fixtures ~~

Amazingly enough, we didn't find anything at City Knits that needed to come home with us and we headed toward home, stopping at Haberman Fabrics in Royal Oak to pick up some fabric for Tanya to use in her soon-to-be remodeled basement.

When I got home I felt whipped.  Could be the rainy day.  Could be the anticipation of losing an hour's sleep tonight.  All I know is that when I sat down here to read my email I nearly fell asleep sitting up.

I am pleased with the pictures my camera took today but have discovered that I can't edit them with my existing software.  So tomorrow I'll have to decide whether to get the new computer and software.  My current system is at it's capacity and I'm often running into virtual memory problems, even though I clean out my cache and history daily.  This PC is 5 years old and it just might be time.

Now it's nearly 10 PM so that is really 11 PM with the time switch so I'm off to bed shortly.  I hope you had an enjoyable Saturday, too.