The incipient springing of spring

Ah... what joy! The weather here in Birmingham at least has been decidedly pleasant and warm for the last two days - I've been longing for it (I feel the cold - a lot!). All of a sudden I am noticing the leaves starting to appear on the trees (especially the horse chestnuts) and daisies and forget-me-nots are back in bloom in the park - yay!

What better way to celebrate all this seasonal cheeriness than with a fitting FO? Here is my version of Elfine's Socks at last:



Details:

Elfine's Socks from My Fashionable Life (Ravelry page here)
Piece of Beauty sock yarn in beautiful, beautiful 'Sweetgrass'
2.25m needles (sock number 1 on Brittany birch DPNs, sock number 2 done using Magic Loop method)

They've actually been finished (and up on my Ravelry project page) for a little while but with their leafy lacy-ness and zingy green yarn now feels like a very good time to post them on the blog at last! As you'll see I've been practicing my techniques by Magic Looping on the second sock (necessity being the impetus here after I lost a second DPN from my set of 5) - I have to say I was quite pleased with how I got along with that way of working, I may well try it again in future. The socks are just a teeny bit tight - but wearable - which I consider a good development in my toe-up sock skills - I've had issues with my cast off being too tight in the past. These socks are definitely a step in the right direction.

My next project is also of the socky variety, but I am going for something a little bit different to keep my interest levels up:



This colourful but bizarre thing is a Sidewinder sock (Ravelry link) using my Opal Hundertwasser yarn. Ever since I saw that yarn I knew I wanted vertical stripes as suggested in the promo pictures. The yarn came with a free pattern (in German) which I could decipher easily enough but it sounded a bit too simplistic to offer a good fit - and the comments on Ravelry confirmed that that seems to be the case in practice and so I turned to Sidewinders. They are really ingenious I must say but there is one major sticking point for me... the grafting... so so so so much grafting - and that is something I'm not terribly good at! The picture here was taken at the end of March and shows almost all of the knitting complete for the first sock, I completed the rest of the knitting quickly enough but I still haven't completed all of the grafting so that I can try the thing on!! Soon, soon.

I have faced an obstacle in the last week though:



I was attacked by a hot griddle pan which has hampered my knitting (and general hand-moving abilities) but I am well on the mend now and if I can get this first sock done I should be able to start the second one over the weekend.

Send good grafting vibes!!