Baudelaire Socks

I swore I would not post again until I finished these.

Now I'm never going to take them off.


Never mind that Sinopa (my new kitty) chewed through my yarn so many times that I wound up weaving in ends for over an hour and was four rows short on one cuff. I'm sure she was only being helpful, dragging partially knitted socks into the bedroom at night, down the stairs during the day. I'm sure she only chewed through the yarn when it became stuck around doorways. It was all perfectly innocent, of course. That all being said, I have decided that toe-up socks are not going win me over against the top down. Oh, the sewn-edge bind off worked beautifully. And casting on isn't that impossible, if tricky the first few tries. But I can't size them as well as I can top-down. Despite following the instructions to a tee, I have socks that are slightly too large (I think a good wash in warmish water will help), not that I mind as they feel so wonderful on.

Last week I was lucky enough to visit Gaspereau Valley Fibres. I'd never seen the Bay of Fundy before and that made the day a mini-holiday to begin with, and then the shop turned out to be an earthly heaven for knitters and weavers. I would honestly live there if they'd let me. The building is an old turn of the century style barn, with walls and walls full like this-

And this-


And their sheep are all milling about outside.


They were super friendly people and stock yarn from all over the world (Fleece Artist, Handmaiden, Henry's Attic, Noro, their own yarns, plus quite a selection of hemp which I'm interested in weaving with but couldn't afford to add to my loot.) Yes, I blew the yarn budget for the month. It wasn't all me. Of course my Secret Pal needed a gift.

On the weaving front, I'm still battling my way through technical issues with wire and too many ideas. For the most part, I think having an excess of ideas is a good thing, but it means they generally are never fully resolved - which doesn't bother me as most good ideas do take time to resolve. But in the meantime, I suffer from a chronic sense of wishing I could do more, and there just aren't enough hours in the week right now.

This first piece is actually about 40'' by 40'', but photos with my flash are too bright. This is much closer to how I would show this, slightly off the wall so that the shadows are part of it.

Handwoven copper, double-weave, hand-made paper, text on paper (hidden).

This is an experiment for a larger project.

Painted linen warp, copper, double-weave.

It's been very warm here lately. Along with foggy and misty. On my walk to the studio yesterday, the fog was so thick along the harbour that even the container ships had vanished completely. I love listening to the foghorns, especially at night when I'm at home working.




Now I'm off to find that beautiful snowflake sock pattern from Mog's Blog...

A big 'hello' to my mysterious Secret Pal. I'll try harder to keep updated in here.