New Sock Pattern

You may remember the white mittens I knitted last year. Our local knitting café Lentävä Lapanen, in cooperation with the Ainola museum, created the pattern based on a pair of mittens knitted by Aino Sibelius, the spouse of the famous composer Jean Sibelius, to celebrate his 150th anniversary.

The pattern can be bought here in English or in Finnish. A kit with yarn and pattern in either language is abailable at the knitting café and at the Ainola museum shop. I have used my pair a lot, on very cold days I wear white fleece gloves inside.

This Winter I had a great idea. Why not knit a fancy pair of socks to go with the pretty mittens? Knit, knit, knit, said my needles and soon I had the prototype finished. It was a special birthday gift.

The next thing to do was to introduce my idea of Aino'S socks to The Flying Mitten, Lentävä Lapanen. They liked the idea, gave me a ball of the original 100% Finnish sheep wool by Pirtin Kehräämö, and asked me to knit a sample pair and to write down my pattern. The pattern can be downloaded here in Finnish for free.

I'm knitting yet another pair for my own  use now:

I changed the heel from the prototype, thinking that Aino Sibelius would have wanted her socks to be a little special all over. This is the heel I used when I wrote the pattern and knitted the socks for the Flying Mitten. The leg part is like the mitten cuff, and the top of the foot part is like the top of the mitten, so there is really not very much of my own design here apart from the heel, and the idea of making socks to match the mittens.