For starters

There are some things that I probably won't be able to keep out of this blog. Like language issues, for starters. For some time I debated with myself about whether I should start a Finnish-language-only or an English-language-only blog, but couldn't decide. We'll see whether one of the languages will become dominant eventually, but for now I'll go with whichever I feel like using.

Verbosity is another thing. My camera is barely second rate and my picture taking skills are practically nonexistent, and I am, in any case, more used to communicating by writing. I do, after all, spend nine months of the year writing essays (or actually mostly procrastinating when I should be writing, but we all know how that goes). As a lifelong reader I also enjoy all kinds of knitting stories and often it is how the yarn turned into a cardigan that interests me more than the finished project. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's (a.k.a. Yarn Harlot) books really struck a chord with me, as they are just that, stories about knitting (or knitters).

I like my knitting projects to also have stories, or more accurately, I tend to give them the shape of a story. The first story that I want to write here concerns a pair of socks as well as the apartment that is my -our- new home.

On Monday March 2nd, I went to see an apartment for rent. It was during the day and my boyfriend couldn't come, so I basically had to decide whether the apartment was something we could be interested in. I thought we could, and after having filled in various forms, the estate agent promised to call either that or the following day. After leaving the apartment I was so excited and nervous that I needed something to do and so I started a pair of socks while eating lunch in a small café. Knitting them had a tremendously calming effect. The yarn (Araucania Ranco) was a beautiful, semisolid turquoise that seemed to glow and I knew that I really, really, wanted to get this pair finished (my sock knitting history being two finished pairs and one unfinished one, plus one very unsuccesful attempt).

Although I started them for stress-relieval, once the estate agent called to say that we got the place, I decided that they would be my home socks. As it was an old house, I thought I probably would need something warm and woolly. I knit them rather monogamously, hoping to be finished by the time we moved in, but didn't quite make it (because we got to move in surprisingly fast). We had lived in the new place for a week when I finished the pair.

Pattern: Spring Cable (ravelry link)

Yarn: Araucania Ranco Solid, turquoise

Needles: 2.5 mm

Not only are the socks special because of their connection with our new home, they are also my first socks knit with such a skinny yarn and small needle size, and taught me to cable without a cable needle. All of this makes me very proud of them, even though the gauge is a bit too loose, especially with the first sock. But they are definitely wearable and so soft and comfortable that I wear them as sleep socks. I usually kick all socks off during the night, but not these!