The Half-Way Point

I can't believe I've been in my little space for two weeks now, with only two weeks left.  And yet, in some ways, it feels as if I've always been here.  I'm getting to know the merchants and my internal rhythm has now matched the rhythm of the Market.

Every morning, at about 9 AM, I walk in through the Charlotte Street gates, and the Market unfolds before me.  I chat with the people I bump into, walk down the north aisle, chat with the folks at the soaperie, and then climb the stairs up to my little haven.

Each day, through the window beyond my table, I see the same elderly couple choose their vegetables for the day, and the same police officer getting his coffee.  I nod and grin at the green grocer on the other side of the Market, and when my stomach growls, I go up to the bakery and get a giant multi-grain roll.  Then I settle in and get to work.

The response to my blog, The View From the Market, has been fantastic.  It's now featured on the main web page for the Saint John City Market itself, and many of the local movers-and-shakers have shared the link with their Twitter followers.   I'm pretty pleased with it; it's turning out to be exactly what I had in mind -- an informal combination of news and tidbits, that I'm really enjoying writing.  In many ways, my using the blog to introduce people to the Market is paralleling the way the Market is introducing itself to me.  I really can't say enough about how much I am enjoying my time here.  It's exactly what I needed.

My biggest accomplishment since climbing the stairs for the first time is that I've finally finished the edges on all of my hooked projects.  When I learned to hook two years ago, I just kept hooking, without binding any of the edges.  For some reason, I found the prospect of finishing the edges to be daunting, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  And then last fall, I told myself that I couldn't hook another thing until I had actually finished the other projects completely.

Well, you know what happened.  I stopped hooking.

A month or so ago, my friend Rosa and I sat down and figured out how to do it, and in the past two weeks here in my little studio, I have been binding edges like a madwoman.  I just finished putting the last whipstitch in the Bloom rug and couldn't wait to take a picture.  (And yes, those are my red sneakers in there for scale. *grin*)

Okay, now wish me luck, because I'm about to tackle something brand-new: needle-felting.  I fished a kit out of the bargain bin at WalMart about a year ago, and I've been bringing it with me, working up the courage to give it a shot.

Hopefully no fingers will be harmed in the making of this project. :)