Evening Stockings for a Young Lady
from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush

Finally done! I thought I would never finish them. I knit them with double stranded lace-weight alpaca and a strand of cotton for added reinforcement. They are (as I think I mentioned before) for my friend Dahlia. I hope to get a picture of them on her, as there is a neat decreasing seam running up the back of the leg. The only problem with this pattern is that even though I added an extra 4 repeats, they do not quite reach below the knee. And they should per the pattern- I've seen many people make the same comment on Ravelry. My advice would be, to anyone who wants knee highs, add 10 extra pattern repeats.

Now the big question is what to knit next. I think my brightly coloured red, green and yellow yarn (colourway sphagnum moss), wants to be straight knit socks. Come to think of it, I can't think of the last time I knit anything in straight knit. I'm feeling like a need a break from lace work.



New work

A vessel for a past grievance
Woven copper, hand-forged red brass, stainless steel needles,
stitching, paint on canvas.

Interior view

Bottom view

Something silly

Courtship (aka, John's Right Foot)*
Charcoal drawing, metal leaf, copper warp ends, oil on canvas.

This is a close-up of a drying painting which is both a work of endearment and an joke. Once upon a time (il y avais une fois), many, many years ago, I was working as a foreperson in Northern Ontario. It was the first week of the contract. We were setting up camp and I didn't know most of the new planters. Another foreman came over to me (I can't remember who to this day), and pointed to a group of people digging a leeching pit and said, "Have you seen that guy's big toes! You've got to go see them!" Out of curiosity, I wandered over to see the toes, which were rapidly becoming famous. But staring down at the ground and staring was slightly awkward, so I had no choice to start talking to the person attached to the feet. Little did I know then that he was my husband-to-be. In the ensuing weeks, we became best friends, and when I finally caved to his persistent demands that we be something more, I threated to break up with him unless he married me. The nerve of being 22...

Now it's 12 years later, and we have spent the last two years in a long-distance marriage. First I was finishing up at NSCAD in Halifax, NS while he studied in Perth, Ontario, and then I decided to move to Montreal all by myself during his last year of school. But, John** has decided to come join me in Montreal at the end of the summer and see if he likes it (and how his French will fare). So we shall be here for at least one more year and I am very happy about that.

But, alas, I am leaving for the bush in just under three weeks. I have beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup work to complete, and no dining room table.

Nor a butcher's block.

I work at two studios here in Montreal, and have stuff stored at both places too. The couch is covered in knitting, naturally.

*For the record, he's a size 13/14 shoe, mainly because of his giant toes. And I think the proportions are honestly off in this painting, because they are longer in real life. I love drawing his feet and hands because they are all tendony and veiny.

**It's his birthday this weekend! And I'm going to miss it. So Happy Birthday John!