More Special Socks and a Teeny Tiny Thing

 So here are the socks 

and I appreciate that they don't look particularly special, and I personally loathe the colour, but as regular readers will anticipate, right up the OH's street. The reason they are special is that I tried a different way of knitting the heel. I've heard people muttering about the shadow wrap heel and how wonderful it is for so long that I decided I'd give it a go. Lots of people find that it feels like a better fit than a flap and gusset heel which is what I've been doing since the year dot of my sock knitting. It seems the OH is no exception, so I suppose I'll be doing shadow wrap heels for him for the foreseeable. 

Here is the teeny tiny thing. Long story, but here's a shortish version. OH wanted a sweater I did for him years ago reknitted, because it was too big. Went into shop in Savonlinna and discovered it carried Finnish Wool. Also discovered that Aran weight, which is what is needed for sweater reknit, is a thing unknown to Finnish knitters. OH fell in love with some Finnish wool, I foolishly asked if they had a pattern for it, they had one he really liked and I had bought it before realising that it was in Finnish only. (I had thought it might be in Swedish as well as much of Finland is bi-lingual like that and I was fairly confident I could cope with a Swedish knitting pattern, especially one relying heavily on charts like this one did. The woman in the shop, obviously not a knitter herself, told me the sweater in the pattern was knitted top down which didn't thrill me, but I've done a few now so reckoned I could cope. Totally bemused by pattern for ages, until I realised that in fact it is knitted bottom up but in the round, so not something I have done before. I was asking about how it was done in a Ravelry group, as I reckoned translating the pattern would be easier if I had some rough idea of what it would be getting at, and not only did someone come up with a good concise description, someone else pointed me in the direction of this pattern which is a very mini Lopapeysa sweater and  which would give me a quick practical lesson in the technique. So I did that this afternoon. 

It was OK, but I will need to relearn underarm grafting before I try it on the real thing. However that's a long way ahead just now. Tomorrow I shall get out some of the wool and try a tension check. Which I hate doing in the round, but there you go. Needs must. 

Also tomorrow, I intend to start writing up our trip away on the blog , but who knows how that will go ....