another day, another f.o. (finished object for those of you non-knitting-blog peeps). pictured above: firestarters in posh yarn rainbow colorway finished last night (info here). it seems that last month i finished three pairs of socks (pictured below), and this month has one pair done so far. this month was supposed to be all about socks, but it seems i was a month too early.

i also realized that the last six pairs of socks i have finished were not for me (nine if you count the three pairs of baby socks), so the next pair will be mine. and what will that pair be? i’m swatching for thelonious in louet gems pewter.

these red panda-cotton elfine socks [warning pdf] are now on their way to a recipient not so far away from me (some sockapalooza socks travel around the world). i am now thoroughly obsessed with this yarn (55 percent bamboo, 24 percent cotton, 21 percent elastic) and have it in a plethora of colors; i even have enough for a black lace cardigan. so farewell lovely red socks, i hope your recipient will enjoy wearing you as much as i enjoyed knitting you.

EDIT: My memory is complete mush, i completely forgot to include the fact that Knitting Vintage Socks was in the package as well. *slaps forehead*. I went through it with a fine-toothed comb and I am going to try some of the different toe and heel techniques. Thanks again deknit!

so i want to publicly thank my fabulous sp10 spoiler, deknit. the last package was amazingly spot-on to what i like: a lovely asian style bowl with bamboo shoots, some hip chewing gum, delicious tea which i have been savoring, and a skein of Wollmeise in colorway Tiefer See (deepest sea). the best thing is that i get to meet her at the Knitters Uncensored Benediktbeuern PJ-Knit Party (yes that is the official name of this get-together, if it were in German it probably would be strung together into one word: die UnzensiertStrickerBenediktbeuernSchlafanzugStrickenParty). so ms. deknit be prepared for a big in-person thank you for spoiling me during sp10!

the second package from my secret pal arrived today! i love the wrapping: so colorful and cheery. for the life of me i couldn’t figure out why the house smelled deliciously of coffee, i hadn’t made any since the last houseguests left a week ago. well, the answer is that my secret pal included some amazing coffee in my package. i had left the package on my desk chair while i was out this morning and the smell is still lingering. i think i’m going to make myself some right now! thanks secret pal! also in the package was some yummy hand dyed german sock yarn and a pattern (printed out and put in plastic page protectors!) for some socks that will look great with this beautiful rust/blue/green/purple yarn. the mix cd is titled Knit & Rock and includes beck, the shins, arcade fire, belle + sebastian, and wilco to mention a few. rock! also included was a perfect black cassette tote bag (my pirate bag is dying a slow death full of holes and has been mended and safety pinned together and now barely serves as a ping pong paddle bag for the park). some lovely stitch markers and a blue row counter and some yummy citrus bath gels round out the package. thanks so much secret pal!

what happens when you have 1002 knitters from 26 countries all knit socks over the summer and blog about it? sockapalooza 4! substitute double pointed needles for drum sticks and yarn choice over set lists and you have got yourself a rocking festival of socky goodness. all the knitters knit for someone, and that someone doesn’t know from whom their socks will come, but they did specify what colors they like and sizes and yarn allergies. my sock pal left things quite open but i am going to be knitting with that red skein shown above, wollmeise of course, and it will probably be something of my own design. so there you have it, i have officially started my sockapalooza-blogging, may the best socka-PAL be the recipient!

well well well what have we here? oh yes, i finished my first sweater today. no i have never made a sweater before, but now i really don’t see what i was so worried about. i guess the plethora of sock knitting helped my pattern reading skillz. the sweater is extremely soft and oh so lovely to wear. i bought this pashmina yarn on a whim at a lys and then had no clue what i was going to make with it. while surfing one day i happened upon this lovely finished object and thought, oh yes my yarn wants to be that.

the yarn i used is a bit lighter than the one called for in the pattern so it took a bit of tweaking to get it to work (i ended up going up two sizes and changing some of the reduction and increase rows and i omitted the first set of purl stripes at the bottom because they weren’t flattering on me at all). i ripped and reknit sections of the sweater and probably knit the equivalent of two sweaters. what is fantastic about this sweater is that it is knit top-down in one piece and then the sleeves are knit right off of the live held stiches at the short sleeve mark. i completed this sweater and the weather has cooled down so i can even wear it. now back to my regularly scheduled programming: socks and circuitry.

details:

pattern: angelica sweater by stephanie japel

yarn: Lana Grossa Pashmina in color 18 (a deep teal), six 50g balls exactly, almost four balls for the body, one ball for each sleeve and the leftover from the body for the picked up edge on the keyhole neckline. this yarn is so incredibly soft, it is ever so slightly splitty but heck this is cashmere and baby merino, who cares about that?

size: knit per the instructions for size 42, but finished bust size of the sweater (not worn) is 35 inches due to the yarn substitution

needles: 5mm circular addi turbo, 4mm circular addi turbo for finishing

mods: tons, in the raglan shaping on the shoulders used M1R, k1, M1L instead of yarn overs because they were a bit too hole-tastic for my taste, only reduced 5 repeats on the back in the bust shaping, 7 as written for the front, omitted first set of purl stripes at the bottom of the body, increased every other row instead of every row for the hip shaping and placed the increases to line up with the bust shaping, knit the sleeves in the round (after all why knit them flat?) using magic loop, did seven reduction rounds for each sleeve and placed the reductions under the sleeves not on top as per the pattern, did not increase at the end of each sleeve and made the sleeves extra long.

[the gorgeous quilt in the background was made by my mother, photos taken by my significant other]