FO! FO!

Yes, I really have two finished objects to show you!

A week or so ago, the daughter of one of my co-workers brought her two-and-a-week old baby to the library.  Those of us with offices in the admin suite (plus a couple others who were alerted to Chloe's presence) spent a good hour passing her around.  She's a very happy, very tiny thing - at the time, she was still several ounces under 8 pounds and only at about the 15th percentile. When her mom went to bundle her up to go back outside, she pulled out a little acrylic hat, too big for her but nevertheless already coming unseamed.

Well - you can imagine how that struck me!  I have not had particularly good luck knitting for co-worker's grandbabies in the past and have pretty much decided that I will only knit for people I know appreciate it, but that pathetic little hat just did me in.  A few days later, I delivered this to the grandma, who will pass it on this weekend:

Details:
Pattern:  Baby Beanie (Rav link) by Ulli Shibuya, with some modifications
Yarn:  Some unidentified sock yarn - I know it's been in my stash forever and its ballband is gone.
Needles: US 2.5 circ and DPNs
Mods:  The smallest size seemed too tiny for even this baby so I cast on an extra four stitches, which didn't actually add that much to the size, but made me fee better.  I followed the pattern up to the decreases, then decreased according to the method in The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.  I topped it all off with a corkscrew, also from the Handy Book of Patterns.

My second FO has been hanging around a while.  I started my Cotty socks last September and finished the first one pretty quickly, I think -- at least, I know it's been laying on the coffee table for a long time!  I put off starting the second one, though, because of the fiddly picot cuff.  I love the way picot cuffs look, but I find knitting the cast-on row to the cuff really annoying.  And, yes, I know you can just sew it down, but somehow that feels like cheating to me, so I have to face up to the fiddly!

Details:
Pattern: Cotty by Irishgirlieknits
Yarn:  J. Knits Superwash Me - Sock in Palm Springs (does J. Knits still exist?  That's a Rav link because their website seems to be dead.  I've had this yarn in stash for years.)
Needles: US 1 DPNs

I made no modifications in this pattern at all, except to use US 1s instead of the suggested 1.5s.  The pattern is well written and very clear.  It was interesting enough to not bore me, but didn't require too much attention, either - except for the picot cuff, of course.  I'm not crazy about the yarn - it seemed kind of splitty to me.  The color is interesting, too - a very, very pale grey with the faintest streaks of lavender and blue.  I think the color might have been better for a shawl than for socks, but I'm pretty sure I'll wear these anyway!

In other news, our big snow mostly melted, but we got more Thursday night, and a bit more last night/this morning.  It's only a couple inches, though, and it's almost March.  Spring must be on the way!  A sign of that, I think, is my constant craving for citrus (or maybe it's scurvy....)  Anyway - I think I'll make this cake tomorrow, but with just lemon and orange, since I really don't like grapefruit, and I have all of the rest of the ingredients on hand.