Baby giraffe

After work yesterday, I got the chance to go see the tiny new giraffe, who was born on February 24. He almost didn't survive at first, but is now happy and healthy, although not fully in control of his legs yet ;)

Here he is with his mom, for scale...

The baby with the kid from last year.

He doesn't really need the tall doors that the other giraffes use, but he's the only one who's short enough to get to try and open them...

Had to lay down for a while.

So glad I got to see him before he grew too much :) He's sooo cute!
And I'm always amazed at how tall giraffes are in real life.


On the knitting front, a pair of plain ribbed knee socks for me. The storebought pair I have, are slowly wearing through on both heels, so I needed a new pair.

Comfort socks

My grandma (dad's side) is unfortunately not feeling well atm, so I decided to knit her some comfort socks. And of course they had to be purple, as that's her favourite colour!
I bought yarn for two pairs, Viking garn Sportsragg (plied purple and blue) and Viking garn Frøya (really soft beautiful purple).

I decided on the Blueberry Waffle Socks for the Sportsragg, as the pattern is not to busy for the colours of the yarn. I started following the pattern cuff down, but it turned out a bit loose, and I didn't like the look and fit of the heel. So I frogged it, and used the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula from Knitty, with the waffle rib.

Pattern: Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula / Blueberry Waffle Socks
Size: 44 sts / about shoe size 37 (tight fitting)
Needles: 2.5 mm for toe, heel and cuff rib, 3.0 mm for foot and leg.
Yarn: Viking garn Sportsragg, 100 grams of colour 589

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I liked working with the yarn. I have a skein leftover, as the LYS lady said I'd need 3 for a pair. I used almost exactly 1 skein for each sock, of course it's easier when they're toe up.
I also have 4 skeins of gray, that I'll eventually use for knitting tall/kneesocks for myself, also toe up, but probably plain rib.

I'm considering the Wyvern socks (ravelry) or maybe these DROPS socks (ravelry) for the Frøya yarn, but that'll have to wait for a while, as two fingers on my right hand have gone numb from the dpns...

Really hope she'll like them! They'll be in the mail tomorrow before I leave for the airport, going home.

Summer socks in a fall garden - or was it the other way around

I had almost forgotten that I'd had a photo shoot for my Summery socks (well they are maybe more like fall socks now that I think about it, aren't they?) a couple of weeks ago. I was back home in Norway for a friend's wedding, wove in the ends of the socks on the flight up, and then literally took my new socks for a walk in our summer house garden.

It's my first time photographing socks (the cable footies doesn't really count, as I didn't really put any effort into those photos), so I had to try out some different things.

The socks were made with the Knitty toe-up-generator, as I only had one skein of the variegated yarn, I figured toe-up was the way to go. The pattern was good, and I know a short row toe and heel by heart now (had to redo the first toe a couple of times, as I wasn't paying attention). I'll probably use the pattern again, when I need a mindless, portable project.
The socks turned out a little looser than I would have hoped, even though I swatched and everything. Hopefully a wash will help. I should probably measure the gauge on the actual socks, to see if anything's changed from the gauge swatch.
The yarn, Filacolana Arwetta, is really soft and I think the colours are kinda cool, even though the pooling is a bit weird. Now I'm on the lookout for REAL self-striping yarn, as in will turn out stripy. I have actually bought a few packs of Kool Aid from koolaid.co.uk, so I might try my hand on some self striping myself one day.