I whipped these up as a birthday gift for Astra, whose party I talked about here. I used most of two balls of Noro Shinano, colour #9 from my stash. They're knit from my own pattern on 5mm needles. I didn't discuss them while I was making them because they were a surprise. I've got a few pictures from the party posted here at Flickr.

I haven't been doing much knitting lately. I let my Non Soleil fall by the wayside since I realized I wasn't going to finish in time to wear it to Natalie's party. Instead, I completed my first toe-up sock with gusset and heel flap.

Knitting this way is kind of fiddly. I knit my socks using magic loop and I wasn't quite sure how to align my gusset stitches on the same needle while I was turning the heel. I used dpns, then transferred them back to the circular when it was time to knit them to the heel flap. Now that I've done it once, I see how it works and for the second sock, I'll be able to forego the dpns. While I'm pretty impressed by the construction, I still prefer to knit the gusset and heel flap the other way; I feel like I have a lot more control in terms of altering the size on the fly when knitting from the top down. However, I'm still going to do the other sock the same way because I don't want them to feel different on my feet.

I've got SNB tonight, and I'll be finishing up another sock that I started a while ago. When I finish this sock tonight, I'll have four individual, unmatched socks. Why can't I just knit two of the same socks in a row?

Tomorrow: Pictures from Natalie's engagement party!