Road trip

Yesterday was a Niagara day which are exciting for a lot of reasons, one of which is about three hours of knitting time. Mum's New Year's socks started the day looking like this:

That longer one is almost ready for its heel, here.

There was so much on the agenda, some of it post-Christmas sale shopping. At Stitch. Ha! Yes, I got to go back to Stitch.

Technically, this is a yarn and fabric store, but it's also a bright warm century home with wood floors and high ceilings and antique display cubbies filled with yum and set far apart from each other so you can keep your head clear while considering all your options. The work table in the back room is a big antique wooden one decorated with shallow old muffin tins set out and filled with buttons; the knit-and-chat space features comfy old armchairs set around a carpet near a window.

I loved Stitch first when it was in my original home town, but now it lives in Jordan Village, a lovely historic street set alongside the edge of the escarpment a little west of Niagara Falls. I know I've said this before but if you come to see Niagara Falls, you really want to take a scenic drive and visit Jordan. In thirty minutes max, you've got access to fabulous restaurants and interesting shops and beautiful bed-and-breakfasts and

fiber heaven.

Yes. Because it seems that now there is not only Stitch, with its inspiring selection of yarns and fabrics for knitting and crochet and sewing, but across the street, The Fibre Garden, which stocks everything you might ever think of wanting for spinning. By which I mean, not only the equipment and accessories but more fiber, in both variety and quantity, than I've seen anywhere.

I was conservative in my shopping, mindful of the enormity of my current stash. However at Stitch I did get the giant needles I've been needing, plus some buttons I fell in love with:

and I finally got my hands on the fall issue of Piecework I've been trying to buy since it came out.

Jocelyn was wearing another fantastic sweater, a different style from the Rowan one she had on the last time I was in and which prompted me to make the Carrot Cardi. I resisted asking her for the pattern and regret that now.

At The Fibre Garden, I got some back issues of Spin-Off that Kathi had mentioned especially enticingly in her blog, and some oil for my spinning wheel.

The shop sells extra bobbins for my wheel there too and I forgot to buy any, dagnabbit. I got distracted by these cute fiber parfaits:

I bought these with 2011 swaps in mind, and if you participate in a swap and get one of these from me you will know I think very highly of you because I love them. I mean, Grape Jelly? I don't know how I can part with that, or how I resisted Peppermint and Licorice Allsorts or Bean Salad.

It was very cold out yesterday and cold always makes the Falls extra twinkly.

The new hotels up on the ridge have permanently changed the weather patterns at the Falls: you can no longer walk alongside them and stay dry in the mist they produce. That of course freezes on contact with anything. You can just make out, looking at that tree on the left, the way the mist has iced over the Falls side of the boughs, while the sheltered side is still green.

The big curving plume in the clouds above it are the spray from the Falls themselves.

In spite of all the getting in and out of the car, I did make good progress on the socks. As the light faded toward the end of the day, the second one sat about here:

I got it to the bottom of its leg a little later, and by knitting in a restaurant at the end of the trip the first one joined it. That was really as far as I could get, having dropped my instructions somewhere along the way, oops. So today's job is to reprint the pattern and get going on the heel.

I really want to get these done and blocked for mum by Saturday, or worst case, Monday. But I don't know whether I can pull that off because there is still about 10 hours' work in them. H'mmmm.