FO: Baudelaire socks and Saartje's booties

Whoa! Sorry about the absence. I'll get to that in a minute though. First, take a look:


Yep, I've fulfilled my obligations as a part of Sockapalooza 4, and then some. I was working on the socks and periodically checking my pal's blog, and then BAM! Out of nowhere, she had a baby. So, instead of doing important grad student type things, I made the baby booties. I finished them about a week and a half ago and mailed them a week ago. Here's the info for the socks and the booties:


Yarn - 1 skein Yarn Botanika Radiance (merino/tencel blend, 400 yards) in bluebells. My sockpal didn't give me any direction in terms of yarn or pattern, so I scoped out her blog to get a sense of the kinds of colors she likes. She seemed to gravitate towards sky blues and pale greens, so I went with this colorway. you can't tell because I took these pictures with my photobooth camera (my real one's back now! yay!), but it knit up in a mottled, not-pooling not-striping way that was just fantastic.
Needles - 32" size 2 addi turbos. This was the recommended needle size for the pattern, so I used it, but were I to knit with this yarn again, I'd probably go down a needle size. they turned out the right size for Sockpal's measurements, but I'm afraid they're not the most durable socks.
Pattern - Baudelaire from Knitty. I picked this because Sockpal said she was "adventurous" when it came to patterns and this one features lace and cables! Lace + cables + fancy shmancy merino/tencel yarn = adventurous, right? I hope so. As for the pattern, I followed it as written for the large size, plus an extra repeat on the leg.


Yarn - I had some aqua and gray Dale Baby Ull laying around, so I used that. I have no idea about the actual yardage, by roughly 6.5g of the aqua and 4.5g of the gray made this pair.
Needles - size 1 clover bamboo dpns
Pattern - Saartje's booties They came out absurdly tiny and cute. Now I kinda of want to knit a lot of them and scatter tham around my apartment so I can pretend helpful elves (who go about barefoot) secretly live in the cupboard.

Ok, so now that that's done. About the lack of blogging: I'm sorry. Besides my inherent sloth, the major culprits are 1) Harry Potter and 2)lack of knitting progress. I figure I get a free pass with Harry because, come on....last book! And the lack of knitting progress has gone a bit like this: I work on something, then look at it and realize it's waaaayyyyy too big/oops I changed needles and messed up my gauge in a totally noticeable way/is a hideous color for my skin...::facepalm:: Literally, all of those things have happened. I'll cover them one by one, but see? My knitting mojo got all wonky and unblogworthy. I think I have it fixed now, though, so no worries.

In other, more competent, non sockpal-related news, I fixed a sock!

See that? I brought it back from the dead, people! I'm pretty thrilled. They're my first pair.

And on the reality TV front, Bear Grylls is my new hero. Seriously, I have seen this man drink his own urine and sleep in a tent he made out of a dead reindeer. Bad ass mofo, that one.