This year, the competition won't start before mid July, but there was a warm up pattern offered as a gift for participants. At first sight it wasn't my cup of tea, but then there was the knit-for-kindergarten-teachers project and I started to think that this would be the perfect pattern for one of Troll Princess' teachers. Even if the competition didn't give a deadline for these socks, I managed to make one of my own: gotta finish these before the Kindergarten closes for the summer. I was pretty happy with the yarn combo I happened to dig out of my sock yarn stash, and it was nice to do some stranded knitting for a change. Actually, I don't remember when was the last time I did stranded knitting!

Pattern: Priha by Tiina Kuu

Yarn: Knitlob's Lair Väinämöinen in colorways Muste (60 g) and Verso (5 g)

Needles: 2,5 mm (US 1 1/2)

The pattern was nice and straight forward, the only thing I didn't understand was the call for larger needles for the stranded parts. I guess it was meant to make the end result more even in case you tend to pull the strands too tight, but as I only have small sock needles in one size I simply omitted the part of changing needles and went with the same set throughout.

I couldn't properly wet block the socks as I finished the pair the same day that the teacher started her vacation, so all I did was to put them on this spare set of legs and steam them with a steam iron. I'm pretty happy with the end result, and hope the socks fit the recipient!