You guys are seriously awesome.  Not only have you said encouraging things along the way, and then said complimentary things when I showed off the socks, but now you’ve actually bought the book.  I have to say it was more than a bit nerve wracking putting up the book site.  What if I put it up and no one looked?  What if I put it up and no one bought it.  It’s the ‘what if I throw a party and no one comes’ anxiety except in a very public venue.  So thank you for coming to my party.  You made the weekend much more pleasant.

The whole book project has sort of lacked concrete milestones.  When is it fair to celebrate, to say ‘I did it!’  When I signed the contract?  Well, various complicated circumstances meant that happened more than once and, the whole project was well underway when the final version got signed.  When the last pattern was written?  Well, the patterns were done, but tech editing and sample knitting were still underway, which meant the patterns were being constantly revised.  When the text was done?  Hahahaha.  My notion of ‘done’ has changed dramatically during this process.  Done is not done — done is just done with the first draft — or the second — or the third.  When the socks were finally all in one place?  Well, there’s not really any time then, as they need to be washed and blocked and lint roller-ed within an inch of their lives and shepherded off to the photographer and generally tended.

At each step along the way, there’s been something else I’m in the middle of or something else that needed to be done before it would feel like it was time to celebrate.  So I’ve made an executive decision.  Having the book for sale is a Big Deal.  It’s worth marking.  Alas, this weekend saw our household beset by sniffles on my part and work commitments on The Boy’s part, so we’ve still not done anything.  I am hereby declaring that when I get to see the actual real-live-physical-in-my-hands-paper-and-ink book we WILL be doing something to celebrate.

Until then, I’ll be knitting and double checking commas until my eyes blur.