PDXKnitterati

You may recall that I’m knitting a toe-up sock, based on what I learned in Cat Bordhi’s class at Sock Summit. Here’s where I was on my sock on Sunday afternoon.

And here’s where I was a mere 5 minutes later. Ouch.

When I tried on the sock, I found that it was about half an inch too long in the foot. Even after tracing my foot and measuring and figuring and all that fun stuff. Poot. Why didn’t I try it on sooner? I did, right after the heel turn, and found it a bit loose, but assumed it would be all right once I finished the back of the heel and got going on the leg. But I couldn’t try it on for a chunk of time because I was knitting in church. (Knitting in church? Meditative, helps me focus. Trying on sock in church? Distracting. Not OK.) When I got home, I tried it on, and it was baaaaaad.

Here’s the bad part of knitting from the toe up, at least with this particular sock architecture. I had to rip all the way back past the beginning of the arch expansion to make the toe end of the foot shorter by half an inch. That’s horrendous. This is my first completed toe up sock, so I don’t know if it’s different with a different sock architecture, but that’s where I had to shorten it on this one.

Looking on the bright side, it gave me a chance to reposition the band so it wouldn’t run into the heel. Perfect.

I finished Wednesday night. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. I love how the Coriolis band winds around the ankle. And I love how simple stockinette lets this yarn shine. It’s Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Alley Oop, and it’s only 48 stitches around. Fast!

I used a 3×1 rib at the top rather than my favorite 2×2, because I wanted it to look more like stockinette than ribbing. And because I knit this based on what I learned in Cat Bordhi’s class at Sock Summit, I finished with the bind off that Cat introduced to us, Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off by Jennifer Staimann. It’s really stretchy! I like the little bumps under the chain loops of the bind off. They look like beads. And I still can’t tell you how it’s done, because it’s not published yet. It’s coming soon, in the fall Knitty.

For the second of my fraternal twin socks, I want to try Cat’s Upstream sock architecture. I was going to try the Riverbed, but I think I’ll save that for a patterned sock because it really lends itself to that. I want something that will let this yarn sing in stockinette. And now that I know how long to make the toe portion of my sock, there shouldn’t be any more frogging trauma. Right?