Slip Stitch O Rama

I watched a great movie from Netflix last night and knit on my new sock. The movie is called "Her Majesty". I thought I was ordering the Helen Mirren movie, and was kind of surprised when she never showed up in this one. After a while I figured it out. It's about a little girl in rural New Zealand in 1952 who idolizes the new queen. She writes her several letters and is thrilled to hear she will be visiting her town on the Dominions Tour. No more spoilers, but I highly recommend you watch it. If you liked "The Squid and the Whale" "Whale Rider!" you will like this one. I cried at the end. Edited to add: What's the matter with me? I HATED "The Squid and The Whale" and it wasn't about New Zealand.

I made great progress on the sock, too. I knit the heel flap on Monday night while watching "What about Brian". I used a two color variation that I might have unvented of the eye of partridge heel stitch. You knit one row that is usually purled. Very distinctive! I'll post more about this later. After finishing the heel turn I picked up stitches in alternating colors to get both strands of yarn to the beginning of the pattern round at the instep, making a checkerboard design. I knit in the slip stitch pattern on the instep, then K1, SL1 around to continue the checkerboard design. Slip stitch designs are hard to use in the gusset decrease area, because the count gets thrown off. I've resorted to stripes or solid areas in the past. One idea I had while knitting this sock was to use a band heel on my next pair. There are no gusset decreases to throw off the pattern then, but there are decreases in the heel flap, so it would have to be a solid color, thus eliminating my intriguing new heel pattern. I could also use a short row heel but, as I've said before, I HATE SHORT ROW HEELS. I did do something different with this sock. I continued the slip stitch pattern on the instep and used a different one on the sole during the decrease rounds. I think this has worked out the best so far. The pattern on the gusset seems to continue the heel pattern, and the pattern on the instep continues uninterrupted.

After I got through the gusset decreases, which took exactly half of the pattern's row repeat, I continued in the instep pattern around the whole sock. When knitting another sock design, I tried to use a slip stitch design on the gusset and a striped pattern on the sole of the sock, but the row gauges were too far off and the sock looked like a boat. It fit okay, but the next pair I tried, with the slip stitch design on instep and sole, fit better and looked nice.

I won't want to stop knitting this sock to start my sock madness design on Thursday.