Friday, January 28, 2011

Heels and toes

Got the heels done on my Biscotte stripeys!

and now I'm well into the toes of my boot socks.

Side note: see the cute little bag there I'm using to keep the balls from tangling with each other in the bigger bag? Melissa again. She found vintage embroidery blanks - linen fabrics with pre-printed patterns and pretty eyelet curves for use as decorated table runners and so forth, and turned them into these little drawstring pouches. She's doing that design often now in other fabrics, if you're craving one yourself.

Now back to those boot socks. I sort of dread working on them because I am putting in a twisty slipped stitch pattern. Technically, it doesn't even show, and it does require paying attention, which I couldn't be much less inclined to do at the moment. But I know it's there, and I do love the look of the finished product when I put on my Sailor's Delights - the twists draw in the pattern at intervals so it looks like it's a bit scalloped up the sides - so I'm sticking with it even though this yarn is more patterned and it shows even less.

The base pattern for both these socks is the same, the one I'm working out to include all my favourite features, but I perfected the heel on the stripeys after I got the toes well started on the boots and guess what?

The boot socks have 2 more stitches than the stripes.

Which means 1 more per heel.

Which means the slipped stitch heel thing I like and worked out with great effort for one stitch less is going to require brain to execute here.

So I decided to bow to reality and do a stocking stitch heel. Honestly, I have several socks with nothing more robust than that and I wear them all the time and there isn't the slightest sign of wear, so I think it will be okay. Plus, this yarn has a ton of hard-wearing mohair in it.

And since I'm speaking of This Yarn,

ahhhhhhhhh!

This is my second and last skein of it, if you don't count the slightly lighter weight that's still in my stash, and for the purposes of this otherwise logical argument I will not.

I bought it at a knitter's fair last September, and I can buy more next September, or I can, um, order some from the farm's website. I think I might have to do that and knit a pair of superfast non-patterned socks because people, this stuff is amazing. SO warm in my boots, so totally non-itchy, so slippery smooth soft, so squishy thick. I mean, it's snowing again right now! It's just practical to stock up, don't you think?

1 comment:

Kathleen Taylor said...

Maire- you're overthinking this. Work your socks exactly as you're doing. Decrease 1 st when you get to the heel, work your new, wonderful heel on the stitch number that you've already sussed out, and then increase that missing stitch and work the cuff. easy peasy.

Or easier still- there's no absolute rule that the heel stitches have to be divided exactly in half. Work the heel on the required number of sts (centered in the back of the sock). You'll have 2 more sts on the instep, which won't matter at all. And then when the heel is done, continue with the cuff.