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.

Toe UP Socks

I've made exactly two toe up socks. Actually neither one of them is done yet but I am past the (short row) heel already. Notice I said socks, not pairs. They are two entirely different pairs of socks. One has been on the needles for about 5 years. It's made of Fixation using DPN's and I JUST HATE KNITTING CUFFS ON DPN'S. I have about an inch to knit on the cuff before I bind off. One of these days I will get out that short circular needle and finish the sock. Then I'll have to make sock TWO. The other one is my Inside Out Sock from the new Rockin Sock Club shipment. After frogging the toe and the heel at least once, I may finally have mastered the garter stitch short row heel & toe. The stockinette short row heel is another story.

Luckily the Sock Madness Mad Cow sock pattern which arrived in my inbox last Saturday morning for the time trial competition gave you the option of knitting toe up or cuff down. I chose to go with my comfort level method and knit cuff down. THEN I came to the short row heel directions. Like others in the competition, I had to go back and check the rules. No changing the pattern! OH NO. I had just recently taken a refresher course on short rows and had completed the heel on the Inside Out Sock the week before, but I still don't really like short row heels. I don't like to do them and I don't like how they fit my foot. I haven't bothered to pursue the adjustment suggestions I've read from other sock knitters because I don't like to do them anyway.

I think the provisional cast on at the ankle, knit down to the toe, then removing the cast on and finishing the sock cuff is the right idea. A lot of my socks have different colored toes because I run out of yarn at the very end of toe two.

Rockin Sock Club Inside Out Sock

I'm working on the new SOTM design from Socks that Rock, Inside Out. I ripped out the garter stitch short row heel I did last night and redid it on a smaller needle. This is my second ever short row heel and I didn't quite get the directions. The heel I ripped out had some holes, and the replacement looks great. I'm ready to start the cable pattern. The pattern is still striping regularly, and the colors were only slightly interrupted by the heel. I think I like it. We'll see how it feels on the foot, but at first glance it looks promising.

UPDATE: After doing one round of the cable pattern, I tried on the sock tonight. I knit the sock onto two long circulars so I could get it over my ankle without losing stitches. It fits!

AARGH! I just saw a place where I purled when I should have knit halfway down the toe! Probably no one but me will ever notice it, but still. With the short row heel there's no way I can ladder down and correct those two stitches.

Problem averted. The wayward purls were on the top of the sock and. luckily, on the top of the cable turn. I frogged one stitch down through the cable and half way down the foot, hooked up the stitches again and it's perfect. Huge sigh of relief!

I still don't have a camera so I scanned my in progress sock. I'm using two circular needles, size 2.75 mm, for the leg. I have thick ankles so I am using a larger gauge. The cable repeat doesn't allow me to easily add stitches to make the leg bigger. EDITED to add: I switched to a 3mm needle, a 12" ADDI, further up the leg. STILL tight!