I am glad it isn't puke

My niece celebrated her 7th birthday today with a pool party, and I really wanted to knit something for her as part of her gift (she is always quite interested to see what I am knitting and frequently asks if I will teach her to knit sometime).

Being a nice Aunt, I decided to knit socks for her, and knowing her favorite colour is lime green, set about stash diving to find the perfect yarn for her first pair of hand knit socks ... what I came up with was a ball of Patons Kroy Jacquard in "Fern Rose Jacquard" - a pretty name for a yarn with lots of a nice shade of green (not quite lime, but close) with some pale pink and turquoise, so I thought -- "excellent, that should be quite pretty", and set to knitting about a week ago. As the sock knit up, my hopes for a pretty sock fell ... this particular colourway also has a lot of a neon yellow, a rusty red, and a dark blue in it (to be honest, it looks like someone took all their scraps and knit them together ... not a nice combo at all!). The more I knit and watched the little sock grow, the more I convince myself of a deep hatred of the colours, and started thinking of the sock as my "clown puke" sock.

(See. it looks like Bozo lost his lunch after one too many spins in the clown car!)

Once I finished the first little sock, I decided that if I wasn't enjoying knitting them, she wouldn't enjoy wearing them, and that a special girl deserves something that is really pretty. The clown puke was set aside (maybe for charity knitting or an auction donation, but not for someone I know who loves pretty colours!), and on Thursday after work, I went to my LYS to get something else to make her socks from, and hoped to heaven I could get a pair done by her birthday on Aug. 8th (party to start at 11 a.m.).

It was tight, but her ankle socks are now finished, given and she loved them (I finished just under the wire - the last toe was kitchenered at 10 a.m. - done with enough time for a quick shower for me, and to wrap everything and get to the party :) I didn't stay up late or get up super early to get the socks done either. I am glad she is only 7 and still has smallish feet!


The yarn I went with was Kroy Socks Stripes in Krazy Stripes colourway (a nice cheery combo of lime, royal, turquoise and sunshine yellow).
Details:
Yarn: Patons Kroy Socks Stripes in the Krazy Stripes colourway
Needles: 2.75 mm Estelle bamboo dpns
Pattern: my own (details on my Ravelry project page)
For: A's 7th birthday
Time In: less than 2 days (not very many hours of actual knitting - I only knit int he evenings and Sat. a.m.)
Again? Oh yeah - if they fit A ok (it was hot, she didn't try them on), I can see theses being a nice pattern for other little kidlets (either as an anklet or with a longer leg)