A fresh crop of little FO's

I've been knitting a lot of little things since the new year came in. Instant gratification. Here's another little catch-up post.

Lace-Edged Hat in Smart Superwash 100% wool (Norway), 4.5 mm circ and dpns.

This is sort of a late Christmas gift for my SIL. I finished her Column of Leaves scarf (sadly, no photo) kind of at the last minute, and since I had a lot of yarn left over, I decided to make a matching hat. I'll be heading home again for a quick visit in February, so I get to give it to her in person. I still had a whole ball of the wool left over when this was done, so I went stash diving and came up with some leftovers of purple tweed in the same DK weight. This little baby cardigan was started and finished so quickly that it never actually made it onto the WIP list.

V-neck Cardigan from the booklet Sirdar Snuggly Book of Baby and Toddler Knits, size 3-6 months, in Smart Superwash (blue) and Tivoli Luxury DK Tweed (purple), on size 3.25 and 4 mm straights.

The original pattern was a solid with a little Fair Isle pattern at the bottom edge. I just used it as a guide for size and knit it in 4-row stripes. I finishd with less that a meter of blue left (hooray for stash usage!). This is for nobody in particular; I tend to keep a stash of baby shower presents around. Sooner or later it will find a recipient. I still need to find some cute buttons for it. And I also finished those crazy stripey socks:

Broad rib socks (improvised patttern, 72 sts) in Lang Super Soxx, on size 2.25 mm dpns.

I'm really glad I didn't try to match the stripes on these, because halfway down the leg of the second sock, I foud a knot in the yarn, and part of the pattern repeat was missing (can you spot it?). The second sock (on the left in the photo) turned out much bluer than the first - the beige pooled on the heel. Knots aside, I really like this yarn, and will probably pick up another skein or two for gift knitting. The fit seems good so far, but I'll see how much they stretch with wear. I seem to have trouble knitting socks that stay up on me, especially in the big snowboots that I've been clunking around in lately. These may well be my new favorite socks.

I'm off to Wool Tyme tomorrow - the big but very hard to get to on the bus yarn store in an industrial park - to stock up on the Galway Heather for dh's sweater. They stock a full range of wonderful stuff that I can't get at my more easily accessible LYS. I'm going to try to resist the pull of the Colinette and Fleece Artist - for the sake of my bank account, please wish me luck!