Life's too short to knit boring work socks.

Haven't really done much knitting up here, but wanted to show this off:


This is a sock made from the blue wool I purchased when I was last in Ottawa. I found an ancient knitting book and was inspired to design this chevron sock at Squirrel Camp. Number one is finished except for the kitchener stitch at the toe, and two is already casted on.

I spent some time today looking for my northern souvenir. I was really hoping to take some mukluks home, but the price for local handcrafts is prohibitive on a Squirreler's wage. Also, I think I would enjoy making myself some one day.

So instead I went to the local knitting store and bought some new sock wool. Turns out I'm turning into a sock knitter. These were all in the 25% off bin....even that Noro. I've been wanting to buy that colourway for years now (literally, since they first brought it to Canada), but I just wasn't a sock knitter before. Now that I am, I snatched it up at sale price.


I also picked up these handcarved buttons. I'm a sucker for handcarved buttons. These are made of, from top to bottom, deer, moose, and caribou antlers.


Over all, it was a very good day for wool. I'm going back to the store on Monday because the owner wants to see my Hiya Hiya interchangeable needles. I also want to take some pictures of her store because it is truly lovely. She also carries the elusive muskox fibre, quiviuk. Unfortunately, it is extremely labour-intensive to collect this rare fibre. The women in the collective that supply her store follow the muskox herd around and pick up the little bits of their underbelly coat that falls off. Then they have to sort out all of the grass, lichen, and guard hairs by hand. This is the warmest and lightest animal fibre anywhere. It costs $80 for 25g. I could not even justify that as a souvenir. They make these kits with one of the neatest mitten patterns I have ever seen. It has a muskox graphic on the back of a very straight mitten with classic Norwegian shaping. I tried one on and that was dangerous. The kit cost $210.00. They were by far the nicest mittens I have ever put on, but there was no way I could buy the kit. She did a really good job at trying to talk me into it, however. I resisted. It was tough. I'm pretty sure she actually wants me to come back on Monday so she can try to sell it to me again. I'm not going to buy it. Really, I'm not. I promise everyone in blogland that I will not buy that kit. I'll just have to come back to the Yukon someday when I'm a rich and famous ecologist and buy it then.