Celebrating with baby socks

Finland is 100 years old in 2017 and there are lots of ways to celebrate, one being all kinds of hand crafts. There's many different patterns available for knitting and crochet, and I didn't think I'd make anything special, but I was asked to make some baby socks to give to babies born/christened this year and just as gifts too. All with white and blue colour scheme of course.

First pair in white. All of the socks are made with the Junasukka pattern, with some changes in the stitch count and length for each pair. Also they all have the same text at the bottom of the foot "Suomi 100 vuotta" = "Finland 100 years". My needlework skills are definitely not great, because I haven't done much at all, but this was very good practice. 

This pair is made with Novita Nalle and 2,75mm needles and the blue used for the text is Regia 4ply.

Second pair has the colours switched, the yarns and needles are the same. Here the text already looks much better than in the first pair, because I used smaller stitching to "write".

Third pair was also made with the same yarn and needles.

And again, the same yarn and needles. This pair was made for an almost 2-year-old child so I had a few more stitches and made the foot longer.

Not baby socks but the theme remains. These mittens are for a 6-year-old. Here both colours are Novita Nalle and I made these with 3mm needles. I really had no idea what size they should be, so I just made them slightly smaller than what I would make for myself, and from what I've heard, they were good. They might be too big for a 6-year-old, but that's better than being too small, and kids grow up fast.

There will be more baby socks coming, at least 4-5 pairs I think. They are really nice and quick to make and I'm starting to enjoy the embroidery part now that I got the hang of it, it was difficult at first.

Finally finished

These are all things for myself that I started making last year but took some time to finish, mainly because I'm still not the biggest fan of weaving in ends. But now that it's done I'm very happy!

A pair of toe-up socks, made with Regia Colormania Color and 2,75mm needles. I absolutely fell in love with this yarn, it has multiple thin strands held together and the colour reminds me of tv static.

This pattern is by Tiina Kaarela, from her book Puikkomaisterin sukkakirja. I started this pair in august last year and then just didn't feel like making it until around december. I just like to have many projects going on at the time, and I can't really focus on just one at a time, unless it's a commission of course. 

I used 2,5mm needles and the yarn is Hot Socks Neon by Gründl, except the dark green which is 4ply from Regia.

This pattern is also by Tiina Kaarela, from Puikkomaisterin lapaskirja. The pattern is made with increases and decreases with very simple fair isle. I used Drops Alpaca with 2,5mm needles. I love these bright colours and the alpaca makes these mittens very light but warm.

I'm making a new blanket

I love blankets so much I couldn't resist ordering some yarn after deciding the colours and having a rough idea of what I wanted to make.

Here is what I got. 15 shades of Stylecraft Special DK and grey for joining and the edge. 

First I made 14 little circles with each colour, so 210 in total.

Then I started the second round.

I've been taking a lot of pictures because we now have more daylight each day.

Time to start the third round.

And this is where I am now. I need to finish the third round for all motifs, and then the fourth and fifth rounds will turn them into squares and after that it's time to join them.