I have a very reliable habit of finishing a heavy sweater just as summer begins. I don’t know why, but it seems to happen every year that I am casting off a thick wool sweater just as temperatures soar into the 80’s.

And so it was this week.

My first handspun sweater is completed.

I constantly have trouble with my sweaters growing once worn, so this time I knit it tight. Really tight. So tight that I had to keep reminding myself that “it will stretch, it will stretch, it will stretch” to get through. There was not a centimeter of positive ease anywhere. It fit like a (snug) glove.

And then I blocked it, and magic happened. It went from really a little too close for comfort to just exactly the right size.

I may have had to knit it roughly three times to get it right, and there is still a tiny, tiny bit of bunching at the front shoulder where I should have taken out an extra 1/2 inch, but I love it. Completely.

I also finished a pair of socks. Actually, I finished them something like a week ago and just haven’t gotten up the momentum to take photos and blog. (That’s not completely true…we did try to take photos once, and the lighting was just horrible, so we gave up).

These are knit from Socks that Rock in colorway Fall on Tap. I pulled the stitch pattern out of one of my Japanese stitch dictionaries, and knit from the cuff down (also a first for me). I love the way the chevrons work with the color repeats of the yarn, and how the twist-stitch ribs help to keep the socks from slouching at the ankles. I used my own made-up variant of Cat Bordhi’s “Sky” architecture, adding increases at the top of the instep rather than at the sides, which allows the pattern to flow uninterrupted to the floor. Combined with an absurdly long decrease section (is that the heel gusset? I’m never sure…), they fit my high arches very nicely. And somehow, the combination of upper arch expansion and complex pattern manages to make my feet look relatively small, which is really nothing short of magic.

As always, I love the Socks that Rock yarns. I don’t know of any other yarn that I can count on to have this many colors and pool only once per sock, in precisely the same spot on each one. I just have to say that I am always impressed with this yarn.

Seasonally appropriate or no, these are two projects that I am happy to add to my “finished” list. I can’t wait for fall!