Birthday socks! Nothing like a frenzied birthday deadline to kick yourself out of a knitting funk! One sock was actually knit in a day, after work and early into the next morning. These are actually my first completed pair of socks!

Funky knee-high birthday socks!

Pattern: I loosely followed Wendy's  basic pattern for toe-up sicks, which includes a short row heel and toe.  As I started working the short rows, I could not begin to visualize how they were going to morph into a toe...until they magically did. SO COOL.Toe up with short row toes and heels is now my favorite way to knit socks. I used Eunny's great tutorial to help me with the provisional cast on (scroll down to the Invisible Crochet Cast On II).

Yarn: Knit Pick's Felici in Aurora. What a FANTASTIC yarn! It's super soft with great yardage. This pair of knee high socks only took about 1 1/3 balls, though this could partially be attributed to short legs and little feet ;) When wet, the socks stretched like crazy, but quickly shrank back to perfect size after a trip through the dryer. The resulting socks were even more deliciously soft. I'll definitely be using this yarn again.

Needles:  Clover Takumi bamboo dpns, size 2.

They were shipped off to my little sister in Santa Barbara later that day, along with a copy of Letters to a Young Poet, one of my favorite books.

After a few crazy days of furious knitting, it felt strange not to have needles and yarn in my hands. I started hunting for something to knit, and found my in-progress thermal stuffed in a dingy plastic bag in the corner of my living room. Could knitting be sneaking back into the picture?  We'll just have to see!

Until next time, happy knitting!