FO: Excequered hat

I love this hat! I made this hat just before Christmas and wore the hell out of it all through winter. I think it's my favorite hat I've ever made.

Yarn - gray and black DK weight Checkheaton country 8 play

Needle - size 3 circulars

Pattern - I made this up as I went along, mostly. I worked it bottom up, doubleknitting in a checkered pattern. At the crown, where the decreases started, I broke up the pattern (a la this scarf i'll never, ever finish) and bound off. Then, I picked up about a third of the stitches along the front bottom edge and made a short row pocket for the brim (I used the brim cut out and trimmed down from an old, cheap hat I bought at Forever 21 a million years ago). I think what I like best is that it's very nearly reversible.

So, that's it. You're up to speed. I also made a sweater and a half for myself that I may never wear (I have a problem with this. I'm trying to be much more realistic in terms of making the kinds of sweaters I actually where instead of the kinds of sweaters I wish I wore because I like making them) and a pair of mittens for Dani which were excellent but which were given to her before I took pictures of them.

FO: Cobblestone Pullover for Jon

Jon's second handknit sweater! This one he seems to like especially, which is excellent.

Yarn - Manos del Uruguay kettle-dyed in navy and brown. I loved this yarn, loved the hell out of it. And I bought enough to make myself a sweater, then couldn't bring myself to because ultimately it would have been a waste of yarn. I don't wear these colors much and I don't wear big mottled sweater no matter how pretty. So I gave up the ghost and made it for Jon instead.

Needles - size 8 addi turbo circulars I think

Pattern - more or less directly from the cobblestone pattern, but with added length in the torso and arms.

FO: Extra Simple Mitts

I made these after winter was mostly over. Because my coat pockets are warm enough and this winter was suspiciously mild, I actually more or less got away without having a good pair of mitts this year. But, my apartment is still kind of cold and my desk is right next to the window, so I worked on these on and off for awhile and still where them in the mornings when my hands are chilly.

Yarn - don't remember. Extremely fine rose-colored lace weight yarn which I think has some substantial silk content to it.

Needles - size 0 addi turbos. These took awhile.

Pattern - none. I made these up as I went along. Aside from the ribbing at the cuffs and the tops, it's all stockinette. I didn't do a gusset (my hands are shaped kind of funny), I just separated enough stitches to make a thumb and used the leftovers to make the part for the fingers.

FO: Modified Froot Loop socks

Yarn - more Spunky Eclectic sock club yarn, but I don't remember the name of the colorway.

Needles - size 1 addi turbo circulars

Pattern - modified version of Froot Loop socks from Knitty, worked toe up with a short row heel. I started them as the pattern specified, but it pulled the fabric too tight across my foot, so I pulled it out and started again, this time only working the loop sections and dropping the twisted ones.

FO: Plain Ribbed Socks

Yarn - another from the Spunky Eclectic sock club (my favorite so far). colorway called Istanbul Sunset. Very thin, fine yarn.

Needles - size 0 addi turbo circulars (like I said, very fine gauge yarn)

Pattern - just a simple 2x2 rib. Really, truly nothing fancy. I started these socks three or four times with fancyish patterns and it never looked quite right - either the pattern overwhelmed the colors or the colors overwhelemed the pattern and neither way looked quite right. So I just did a rib instead.

They were worked toe up (casting on 32sts and increasing to 72 sts) with a short row heel (everything wrapped but center 13 sts). The 2x2 rib was worked as set for about 50 rounds, then I started calf shaping by making 1 purl stitch in between the two already set purl stitches of every 3rd repeat of the rib pattern (you can see it if you look closely at the second picture above). the next 9 rounds were worked as established. I did this two more times, so that by the end all purl sections had three stitches instead of two.

FO: Monkey socks for me

Yarn - I honestly don't have a clue. bought it a long time ago to make socks for someone else online, proceeded to mangle it into a Gordion knot, and then shoved it in the back of my yarn cabinet to hide from the shame and failure of it. Grabbed it this Christmas and determined there was just enough to make a short pair of socks with it.

Needles - I believe size 1 addi turbo circulars

Pattern - Monkeys from Knitty. I made a pair for Tamar before, now I have a pair for me. Worked them toe up with a short row heel so technically the monkey stitch pattern is upside down.

FO: Los Pequeñeos Relojes de Arena socks

Yarn - Sometime last year just after I went on that blogging hiatus, I joined the Spunky Eclectic Sock Yarn Club. It's excellent. This was the November (or maybe October?) colorway called Ribbons. Very squishy.

Needles - size 3 addi turbo circulars

Pattern - Los Pequeñeos Relojes de Arena socks done toe up with short row heel. Pattern was fun, quick to memorize, if a little tricky. Definitely more intricate than it looks, but it's set me on a rib-based sock kick that just won't quit.

Week of Socks!: Baudelaire socks for me

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Ah, we've reached our week-long excursion into the glorious land of socks. And now you're up to speed on what's been going on knitting-wise with me. Although, I guess I should say that these were finished a couple of weeks ago, which means that they weren't really completed in the summer. But I guess that's neither here not there.

Yarn - Dale of Norway Baby Ull (100% wool, 180 yards) in firetruck red. I bought 2 skeins of this and one skein of pale gray to make a second pair of red herring socks, but I just never could bring myself to attempt the color knitting again. It's a nice, soft, squashy yarn.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - Baudelaire from Knitty, which I've done before for sockapolooza. But this time, I shifted the pattern so it's spread across the outer edge of the foot/side of the leg. And, as promised in the spiral socks post, I mirrored them for extra-cool symmetricalness. Besides this obvious deviation from the original pattern, I made the following modifications:

• I worked it toe-up and did a short-row heel.
• I add calf shaping on the inside leg about 4" into the leg.
• I wanted the lace section to neatly divide the sock in half, so I slightly altered the pattern to be 13 sts wide.

Week of Socks!: Vinnland socks

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This is about the point at which I started running out of creativity. As explained below, both the pattern and the yarn are repeats and/or cop-outs in one way or another. I blame that on the fact that I was making them in August while I was working on drafts of like 6-7 articles (seriously, I was swamped) and visiting the family back in Texas. Didn't have a lot of brain power available, you know?

Yarn - 2 skeins of Lang Jawoll Cotton (49% new wool, 35% cotton, and 16% nylon) I had leftover from these socks. This yarn is still pretty awesome. Good thing I overbought (I might actually have enough for another pair lying around.)

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - The Vinnland pattern from the Anti-Craft. I really like this pattern, but if you're astute you may have noticed that in the grand sock queue, it's been slated to socks for Van, not me. Well, hopefully I'll finally make him some awesome Vinnland socks of his own one day (I really am planning to, I swear), so I'll consider these a dry run. Hell, maybe if I have enough I'll make him a matching pair out of the same yarn. The pattern called for it to be done toe-up with a short-row heel, so the only modification I made was using the magic 8 CO instead of doing a short-row toe and adding some calf shaping (see the photo above).

Week of Socks!: Spiral socks for me

(click for bigger. Also, note that though you can't actually see it in full, the leg of the socks is about mid-calf, so about 10" long. Yeah, should have taken better pictures, my apologies.)

I've made socks like this before - once for my mom, and once for my sister. And I've made awesome spirally hats (a set of them from the same awesome yarn, one for me, and one for Dani). But, until now, I've never made myself spirally socks. This terrible oversight has now been rectified and my life can go on.

Yarn - Yarn Botanika Radiance (merino/tencel blend, 400 yards) in jewel. This yarn is odd. It's lovely, with a really fluid drape and a nice shine to it, but it's not terribly soft. Not scratchy, just a bit stiff. I think it might be due to an overabundance of dye or something, it might soften with a couple of washes. But a very pretty dye job nonetheless.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - A pretty simple travelling yarnover stitch loosely drawn from the spiral boot socks pattern. I followed the pattern for my sister's socks, but not my moms, and this one I did mostly by sight but used the pattern's trick of using the yarnovers to incorporate calf shaping. Basically, that means that every inch or so I didn't decrease once when I added a yarnover (which if you look really, really closely, you can spot).

I worked them toe-up, casting on 28 sts and increasing to 60. A short-row heel was worked with all sts wrapped but the center 10. The cuff was about an 1.5 inches of 1x1 rib. The actual spiral pattern was worked starting with 8 sts between YOs, and eventually went up to 12 sts between YOs. And, last but not least, I mirrored the direction the spirals travel in because I love symmetry (stay tuned for more symmetry!).

Week of Socks!: Smockings

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Like the socks I posted yesterday, this is a pattern I've been toying with for awhile and finally got around to actually fleshing out and knitting up. I think these came out pretty well, too.

Yarn - Claudia Hand Painted (100% wool, 175 yards) fingering weight in Ingrid's Blues. I've actually had this yarn for years, Jon bought it as a Valentine's day present for me awhile back, so it's all special and stuff.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - I wanted to do something that had a little texture and visual interest, but I was afraid that the vibrancy of the colorway would overwhelm something very intricate. I'd been toying with the idea of incorporating smocking into socks for awhile, and it seemed like a good fit. I worked it toe-up (CO 24 sts, increased to 60) with a short-row heel (wrapped all but the center 10 sts).

All the smocking goodness was done on a 20 st-wide panel on the top of the foot/front of the leg. When I was working it, the panel was just done as a rib (p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2 with the 5 remaining sts on either side done in stockinette). The sole/back of the leg were worked in plain stockinette, with one set of calf increases (inc 2 at center back every other row 5 times) about 6" up the leg. The cuff was done in about an inch or so of p2, k1 rib.

The smocking itself was done as a finishing technique after the whole thing was all knitted up. I used this as a rough starting point, and it basically entailed threading the leftover yarn up six stitches and wrapping the seventh stitch together with the knit stitch to the immediate right of it. I really like the way it turned out, the closeup above gives you a sense of how it looks unstretched and the top photo is how it looks when you wear it.

Week of Socks!: Split Cable socks

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I really really like this pair. I think this might be the highlight of Week of Socks! for me. It's just one of those nice little projects where I love everything about the end product, and I think they'll get a lot of wear this winter.

Yarn - This is from Zeitgeist yarns, and it's lovely. It's super soft (though slightly thicker than I usually use) and the shifting shades of blue are subtle and complicated at once. Really good stuff, I definitely recommend checking out her yarns. And her blog is awesome, too.

Needles - Like I said, it's on the slightly thick side, so I magic looped it on size 2 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - This one I totally made up from scratch. I've been batting around this idea for a good, long while and kept tinkering with it until I had the perfect yarn for it. I worked them toe-up (CO 28 sts, increases are done in 1x1 rib pattern on the top up to 56 sts that eventually feeds into the cable panels, you can see it if you look closely at the photos) with a gusset and a sort-of dutch heel (with the cable pattern worked along the edges and the center part of the heel just knit in regular stockinette with no slipped stitches).

Calf shaping was added by increasing 2 sts at the center back every other row three times when the leg was 6" long and once more when it was 8" long. The cuff is just an inch or so of 1x1 ribbing.

The cables twists on the sides of the foot/heelare simple mirrored braids, and they join when the leg starts into a more complicated 6-stranded cable panel along the outsides of the leg. Eventually, I'll chart it out more thoroughly and post it so I can make more of these bad boys.

Week of Socks!: More Jaywalkers for me

This is the second pair of jaywalkers I've made for myself (here's the first pair). I finished these sometime in May, I believe, and rather like the way they turned out.

Yarn - Spunky Eclectic¹ skinny superwash sock yarn in Dinah. This yarn was a total impulse purchase and when it arrived in the mail I wasn't really sure what to do with it. I wasn't sure I really liked the colors after all and it looked all wrong when I rolled it into a ball. But I actually really like the way it knit up. Sometimes yarn surprises you that way - there are some skeins I've bought that are just ridiculously beautiful int heir natural skein-ish state and then look kind of wonky in actual knitted garment form, and this one was quite pleasantly the reverse.

Needles - It was indeed quite skinny sock yarn, and I believe I magic looped it on 47" size 0 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - The ubiquitous Jaywalker pattern. I mean, it's ubiquitous for a reason, right? It's easy and it looks great with crazy hand-dyed yarn like this. I made these mods (and they are about the same as always):

• Went toe-up this time instead of top down.
• I worked a short-row heal instead of doing the whole gusset song and dance. This helped nicely to keep the yarn from pooling, actually.

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¹I totally joined the Spunky Eclectic sock yarn club, so I guess that whole out-of-yarn-thing is now officially being rectified.

Week of Socks!: Fargyles for Jon

I have seven brand news pairs of socks to present, because I did knit this summer, but through a combination of being away from my computer for extended periods of time, not being able to find my camera, not being able to find my camera's USB cord, laziness, etc., I haven't found the time to post them. But today, while I caught up with last (and increasingly terrible) season of Heroes, I've finally finished them and taken some barely adequate photographs of them. Yay, progress!
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(tiny tissue box included in photo for scale. Jon's feet are gigantic)

I finished these ages ago, sometime in late April/early May. But, actually wrangling Jon into taking pictures with them on was hard, since he's constantly wandering off or losing them or both. In any case, what this means is that I am (more or less) done with the sock queue! Check it:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van (permanent hiatus)
   
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Awesome. Finally. Guess this means I need to start a new one, though. Which, since I am now officially out of sock yarn (the Week of Socks flood of productivity ate through my stash), means I need to buy more yarn. Food for thought. But back to the socks:

Yarn - The foot/leg were worked in Peace Fleece DK (70% wool, 30% mohair). It took one skein in violet (Jon specifically requested purple socks). But, as his feet are massive, there wasn't quite enough to go around, so I did the toes/heels with some Knitpicks Swish DK (123 yards, 100% superwash merino) in mist leftover from these. The Peace Fleece, in addition to being a total hippie yarn that tries to end what's left of the cold war, is pleasantly sheep-smelling. Lots of lanolin.

Needles - magic looped 'em on my trusty 40" size 3 addi turbo circulars.

Pattern - Based it off the Fargyle pattern from Knitty, which is a nice mindless sort of pattern if you don't mind all the purling. I made the following modifications:

• I did them toe-up instead of top-down.
  
• I worked an afterthought heel instead of a dutch heel/gusset.
• The original pattern calls for a 23 stitch wide fargyle pattern, and I increased this to 30 stitches. I just took the logic of the existing pattern and made it bigger for the most part.
  

First FO of 2009: Wheelie Socks for Dani

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They are very, very, late, but Dani has her socks! And she loves them, too, which is nice for everyone involved. She should though, since I let her go through my socks and pick a pattern she liked and go through my sock yarn and pick what she wanted them made out of. That mercifully took the guesswork out of it for me. Of course, this means that the sock queue needs updating:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

So close to done! Actually, I'm closer than this would suggest - for reasons to be detailed at some later point I think Van's socks are on permanent hiatus, and I've actually started Jon's socks (which will hopefully be durable) already. I will conquer you yet, Sock Queue!!

Yarn - Hipknits sock yarn in pudding (100 grams, 100% wool). I bought this yarn way, way back when I first started the sock queue because I liked the contrast in the colorway, and planned to make socks for myself from them. I even started a sock, once, but I didn't like the way the pattern looked and ripped it. It's found a better home now.

Needles - Addi turbo size 1 circulars. So trusty.

Pattern - I used this pattern, which I adapted from the Wheelie steering wheel cover from Knitty. I love this pattern, and will probably mae myself another pair of these socks. They're stretchy without being all lose and floppy and still fun to knit because of the dropped stitiches. Here are the modifications:

• I did these toe-up with a short-row heel instead of top-down.
  
• I shifted the pattern on the top of the foot over by one stitch, so that the first and last stitiches were purls instead of doing it as a straight 2x2 rib.
• I worked a 2x2 rib (no increases or drops) on the back of the leg for the five rounds at the start of the leg section. It just looked nicer this way.

FO: Orange Tweed Boatneck

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Got this one in just under the wire! It's been done for a week or so, but I needed to to some finishing and some serious blocking before I could blog about it. It's a very simple sweater - top-down raglan with garter stitch cuffs and a ribbed hem, and the rest in stockinette - but I really like the way it turned out. I'm realizing more and more that I like to wear fairly simply looking sweaters (though more interesting construction is always a plus), but I like to knit crazy-intricate stuff that I don't ever seem to actually wear. Cruel twist of fate, I guess.

Yarn - 6 skeins of Classic Elite Skye Tweed (100% wool, 110 yards) in MacAlister Orange. This yarn is beyond awesome! I got it on closeout from Webs a really long time ago, maybe a year or so back, to make a sweater vest and just sat on it. An then I decided I should make an actual sweater out of it and had just enough for elbow-length sleeves.

Needles - 24" size 5 Inox grey circulars I think. Hmmm....I should resize and sort my needles.

Pattern - Made it up as I went along, but as I said, it's got a really basic construction and no fancy stitchwork anywhere. The garter stitch cuffs on the neck and sleeves were knit flat, and the rest of it was worked in the round. The mother-of-pearl buttons were salvaged from a shirt that got caught in a nasty flood when I moved ot Michigan for grad school. I used these buttons for my very first sweater ever, too.

PS - if you have a more creative name for this sweater, let me know, because I clearly don't.

FO: Rhiannon Knee Socks for Mandy

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These have been done for awhile too, although not since August, like Sam's. More like late-September/early October. These socks will be showing up for Mandy at Christmas, which I feel a little bad about since everyone else has had their socks for awhile now. But it is a more appropriate time to get knee socks....so I guess it all works out. And now for the really satisfying part of finishing them:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

On to the knitting specs!

Yarn - maybe 3 1/2 skeins of possibly Lang Jawoll Cotton (49% new wool, 35% cotton, and 16% nylon)? I'm really not sure about the yarn. It's a great thing black and green tweed with a strang of gold running through it, and I know I picked something with a decent amount of cotton in it so that Mandy's legs would bake in the socks. I'm pretty sure that it's Lang Jawoll because it came with reinforcement thread (which I totally didn't use), and I think that brand does that. Note to self - take better notes.

Needles - addi turbo 1's, same as Sam's

Pattern - Rhiannon by Cookie A. Again, I didn't actually read the pattern, just references the charts (noticing a pattern with this?). Here are the mods...well the one's I'm aware of and remember making:

• worked it toe up with a short row heel. Woo! Toe up 4-eva!
  
• according to Mandy's measurements, I bet the calf shaping got tweaked a bit. I ended up increasing every other row about 2 inches past the ankle
• I didn't knit foldover cuffs, just ribbed ones
• I threaded elastic thread around the top edge of the cuffs to prevent them from falling down, like Leila and Sam's reportedly have been doing (Note to Leila and Sam: check out the inside of Mandy's socks to see how you should fix yours, if you so desire).

FO: Millicent Knee Socks for Sam

So.....this is really old news. I finished these and gave these to Sam (along with the socks I made for my Mom, stepdad, and sister) when I was visiting Texas way way back in August. Sorry about the hold up. Wait! You know what this means:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Woot.

Yarn - Knitpicks Risata (42% Cotton, 39% Superwash Merino Wool, 13% Polyamide, 6% Elite Elastic) in Navy. I thought knitting with this yarn would be weird and awkward - that it would be to springy to get in the groove with - but it turned out to be kind of nice to knit with. And good sock yarn, though, in hindsight maybe not the best choice for these socks (the elastic makes it slightly nubbly, which makes stitch definition on the laces cuffs less than awesome). It wasn't quite stretchy enough, either, probably due to the high cotton content, and the cuffs sag like all hell¹.

Needles - Hmmm....it's been awhile now, but I think I made this using size 1 (which is really more of a 1.5 compared to my other needles) addi turbo circulars.

Pattern - Millicent from Cookie A. I really didn't read the pattern at all (even though I bought it), just knit it toe-up using the pictures. I just looked really closely to figure out the toe, then it was golden. I increased 2 at the center of the back of the leg every 5 rows to make the calf shaping starting an inch or so into the leg. I did read the charts for the lace cuff.

¹Sam, I'm including some elastic thread in the pickage of christmas stuff for you and Leila to fix the cuff problems with. Just a heads up.

FO: Proletariat Socks

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My stepdad's socks are done! I know I'm already a few months late, but I'm starting to really bang through the sock queue! It's a good feeling. Check out the progress:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Despite the top picture, I think these turned out pretty good. They're totally inoffensive to one's masculine, both in color (a nice manly gray) and texture (just ribs and seed stitch), and machine washable to ensure optimal low maintenance care.

Yarn - 2 skeins of Knitpicks Swish DK (123 yards, 100% superwash merino) in mist. This is awesome yarn for thickish socks - it's squishy and soft, but still stretchy and not too heavy.

Needles - magic looped 'em on my trusty 40" size 3 addi turbo circulars

Pattern - I totally made this up as I went along at the socialist thingy. Here's how it went:

• CO 28 sts using figure 8 technique, and increase 1 st at beginning and end of each needle every other row until there's 60 sts total
• For the top of the foot: p1, k2, p2, work 20 in seed st, p2, k2, p1. Knit across sole.
• Around round 40, start gusset increases by increasing 1 at the beg. and end of the sole section every other round. Continue the top of foot pattern. Repeat until you have worked 10 increase rounds.
  
• For the heel: p1, k2, p2, work 20 in seed st, p2, k2, p2tog. Turn work and sl1, then: p2, k2, work 20 in seed st, k2, p2, k2tog. Repeat until all the increased sts have been used up, which should be 20 rows (PS - notice something missing? Like short rows? Yeah, I totally blanked on that. I think they turned ok anyway).
• Keep knitting the leg in the rib/seed st pattern as established until you run out of yarn. BO loosely.
  

Socialism + Knitting = Awesome Hats (and other stuff, too)

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I've apparently developed a habit of associating hats and those long-ass socialism meeting that have been alluded to in the last couple of posts. Case in point: last year, I made this hat at the meeting, and this year, I made the chapeau above in preparation for the meeting.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "as a faithful and dedicated reader of your blog, I am fully aware that you already have quality hats! What could you really call this and this but awesome headgear? You don't need another one!" And you'd be right about that, reader, if the aforementioned commie get-together was held in Boston, like last year. But it wasn't...it was in Minneapolis. So, while I do have some pretty snazzy hats, I feared they were only Michigan-compatible - not really appropriate for the Icebox of America, you know?

Besides, I was buying yarn as a birthday present for Jon anyway (he's expressed interest in working in the round, maybe even making his own awesome hats), which served as a good excuse to buy some more yarn for myself.

Yarn - 2 skeins of Rowan Big Wool (100% wool, 87 yards), one in glamour and one in stormy. Since time was of the essence, I used really bulky yarn. To be honest, I've been looking for a good excuse to use big, puffy yarn since knitting with it so quick and satisfying.

Needles - I stole the clover size 11 bamboo straights Jon's been using for his scarf. You know, it's really weird to knit a hat on straight needles.

Pattern - Tychus from Knitty, modified for my gigantic gauge, a pom-pom, and earflaps.

The best part was that after the hat was done, I realized that a lot of yarn was leftover - enough to make these slipper-socks!

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Aren't they awesome? They're great for me, since I have ridiculously cold feet.

Yarn - clearly, the same as above

Needles - set of 4 Brittany size 11 birch dpns

Pattern - a basic toe-up sock with 1 x 1 ribbing on the cuff and top of the foot. I casted on 10 sts using the figure 8 method, increased to 26 sts, and then worked the foot with ribbing on the top and a stockinette sole for 15 rounds using the other color. I worked a short row heel in the first color, then worked 4 rounds in the second color in 1 x 1 ribbing. The last round was worked using the first color before binding off.