I finally picked up the UCLA socks for Sweetie Boy again. In our last update, I was stalled out because I wanted to do a heel flap for this toe-up sock but the numbers were smaller than other patterns out there. And frankly, I wasn’t feeling the sock mojo. With the ever growing pile of sock yarn as the stern kick in the pants that I needed to focus on socks again, along with the excitement over The Harlot’s Lenore pattern from the Rockin’ Socks Club, I felt my interest turning ever so gradually back to socks. The thing with these toe-up socks for me is that I wasn’t feeling patient enough to rework numbers and follow a pattern line by line without really getting what was going on. I just didn’t have the patience or interest to do it.
Then, I found Mouse’s Toe Up Sock Pattern through Ravelry and it made sense. Mouse’s pattern, as she puts it, isn’t a pattern per se, but rather guidelines, kind of like The Harlot’s sock pattern in her Knitting Rules book. Voila! That’s exactly what I needed! I didn’t want hard and fast numbers, but something general enough, like do your gusset increases until you have almost double the number, or double if you like. Or do the wrap-and-turns until you have about one third of your original heel stitches. So on Wednesday at knitting group, I turned the heel. It was an imprecise heel but I loved it all the same. And when I was done, I was over the moon.
Since then, I finished the one sock and have cast on for the second. At 44 stitches on size 4 needles, the thing practically flies off my needles. I had knit up the leg on the first sock, and when Sweetie Boy tried it on, he said he wanted them to be ankle socks. Woot! Woot! I frogged back an inch or two and bound off, using Wendyknits' stretchy bindoff. I'm just about to start the gusset increases on the second sock and am still loving this. Ahhhh, I've missed socks, I think.
