I’m in America! I’ve been home for about two weeks and it’s been so nice! I have been using my time wisely and trying to knit as much as possible while I’m home since I haven’t had much time to do so in the past few weeks.

I have an FO for you to see and it is a pair of hat heel socks!

Back in September I met Clare from Nimu yarns at the IKnit Weekender. I had bought some of her yarns the year before and after knitting them into jaywalker socks and nutkin socks, declared that they were some of the best yarns I’d worked with. She and I did a bit of talking and by the end of the day, I agreed to knit some samples for her. This was my first project. So, the yarn is called Striding Edge and it is a basic wool sock yarn. It is plied in a way that gives it an excellent texture and it is so nice to knit with. You can see from the picture how beautiful the colors are. Clare is an excellent dyer, and I find that her colors don’t pool. Her etsy shop is closed right now, but when it opens back up, buy her yarn! It is amazing!

The pattern is also a very fun knit. I really wanted to try this pattern as soon as I saw it in the fall knitty because it just seemed like such an unusual construction. It was simple to knit, and although I knit the socks a couple sizes smaller than my feet, I thought the hat heel was an excellent fit and I am thinking about making a pair for myself. If i knit it again, I think I will add some sort of stitch pattern to the leg and foot, because when I knit plain stockinette in the round, I get ladders. Anyway, I love these socks and I’m glad Clare likes them too!

In other news, I have some big knitting plans for the new year. I have signed up for the 10 shawls in 2010 challenge. BUT this did not seem like a very big challenge to me, so I’m also going to try to knit 10 pairs of socks in 2010 AND I’m going to tackle stranded color knitting. It’s going to be a busy knitting year for me, so get ready! Also, look for a 2009 wrap-up post after christmas with final yardage counts and photos!