Look what I received from my Sockapalooza Four pal ….

Steph

 It’s a most wonderful package that includes a pair of my very own Monkey socks. I LOVE them, I love the color, I love the pattern and best of all they fit perfectly. I also received a skein of Trekking XXL in another beautiful color and the book Knitting Under the Influence with a very nice note. I love to read so the book is great, I started it this morning and so far so good. I think I might make me another pair of Monkey’s with the yarn. The socks are really cute and the pattern looks fun. I wear my blue jeans a lot so the socks and the yarn both are great colors to wear with jeans.

Thank you so very much Steph. Don’t pay attention to my wonky looking feet, (trust me it is my feet) but I want to show you just how well these socks fit. You did such a wonderful job. Thank you, thank you. They are just perfect.

What a wonderful experience I had with the Sockapalooza Four, I am very pleased. In addition, these are the first items that anyone has ever knit for me so they are very special socks and I will treasure them always, I cannot thank you enough, Steph. I loved getting this package.

Sometimes I get bored and just like to change up the look of my blog and play around with the templates and colors. My knowledge of this stuff is so very limited and I keep trying to figure it all out. I want to taking a web design class just because I think it would be fun and I would enjoy learning more about it. On the other hand it would take away from my knitting time so for now I found this template by Laughing Lion Design and just changed the font colors a bit. Be sure to put your vote in and tell me what you think.

I am patiently waiting for word that my Sockapalooza Four pal received her socks and I still have my fingers crossed that she likes them and that they will fit.

In addition, I am still waiting to receive my socks from my sock pal and right now I am starting to get pretty excited. I have not participated in any kind of knitting exchange before and now I am really looking forward to seeing what my sock pal cooked up for me. I know she has been working on them and they may get mailed out today. She was thoughtful enough to let me know the status of her gift for me. She is Mrs. Myterioso, somebody, somewhere. I found her creativity for setting up an e-mail account like that so absolutely brilliant that I can be sure my socks will be wonderful. No one has ever knitted me anything before so my anticipation and excitement is growing daily. Only another knitter can really know what goes into knitting for someone else, how much thought and effort is involved so from one knitter to another, I know I will truly appreciate my socks.

Remember this???

The Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style that I started with this yarn …

Tonalita by Trendsetter?

Well good, then stay tuned for more knit news; I have much stash enhancement, project news, project dumps, organizational and knitting news to tell you about later. I am just not feeling well at the moment, so hopefully I will be up to show and tell tomorrow.

My Sockapalooza socks are complete, they have been washed with some nice Citrus Soak and are drying at this moment while I am preparing a little package of goodies to send with them. A nice little package will go in the mail tomorrow morning.
I am calling them “Lunasea Waves”. I will explain why after my sock pal receives them. I would so give away who my sock pal is if I spill my guts now!Here is a couple of close up shots of the pattern. I really enjoyed knitting these and plan to make me some socks using this pattern.


The other fine details are….Yarn – Socks that Rock
Color – Lunasea
Pattern – A mix of several different techniques so the socks themselves are quite unique, I used a toe up Turkish Cast on, the Stanton 196 stitch out of the book More Sensational Socks a gusset heel about an inch of 2 x 2 ribbing and a fancy new bind off.
Needles – I used a US 1 for the foot and heel and then switched to a US 2 half-way up the gusset. Bind off – Found on Grumperina goes to Yarn Shops and Home Depot.

I used this pattern because it gives a bit and because it looks wavy (you will find out why I picked the “waves” look for my sock pal, later.) I made a slightly longer heel flap and changed needle sizes to accommodate a wider foot with wider ankles. It seemed that my pal was concerned about wider and swollen ankles.

I tried several different bind offs that I have in my collection but none were good enough for these socks and I wasn’t happy so I searched all my books and the Internet. I found a very nice bind off here and was quite pleased with the results. With Grumperina’s permission I am re posting the directions. this is the best bind off ever for a toe up sock and I will be using this one for all my toe up socks! Thank you Kathy.

Work 2 sts in pattern (either knit or purl). Move yarn to back (if the last worked st was a knit, this is already the case). * Transfer the 2 worked sts to the LH needle, and k2togTBL. Work 1 st in pattern (move yarn to back if it was a purl), * repeat between *.

Right now my fingers are crossed while I wait for them to dry in order to mail them and then I will wait to hear if they fit and if my pal likes them.
Just for fun you can check out other sockapalooza socks here