Car pool is back to being my personal/sock knitting/phone call catch up time, sometimes one of the above, sometimes all of the above. This has given me lots of time to work on the socks for me (no pics yet, alas) using the lace pattern the Bee picked out. Totally loving using a pattern in the foot/leg of the sock; it makes the foot go so much quicker and the lace pattern I'm using is stretching out the yarn just right. I might get 3 inches on the leg which is ideal. I was expecting something close to ankle socks but am glad they aren't as extreme ankle as I thought they might be. I'm a size 10 foot so there is lots of yarn going that length before even thinking about turning the heel!
The other day I had realized I had the foot long enough and was trying to figure out where in the yarn pattern to stop or do a little extra without having complications when the short row heel was finished and it was time to join the heel stitches back to the top of the foot. I've never done this before and wasn't really thinking about the complications about the lace pattern exactly, more the past experience of not realizing how short a short row heel is and not doing the foot long enough, thus having a sock an inch too short with a heel finished and me chewing nails because I don't want to frog a heel. (Don't ask me why frogging heels can be so daunting; I think it has something to do with the magical way some unseen force suddenly transforms the questionable tube into a sock , the knitter being only a pawn in this game of love and war, and to undo the miracle would be sacrilege. Or at least make the knitting gods mad at your insolence and consider striking you down.) Well, Harriet (my knitting muse) was on my side this time. I quickly looked over everything, thought "ho hum, I'll finish this 6 row slant, stop before the knit only row so I have that knit only row to collect my sanity after doing the heel and before starting the pattern all the way round and do my heel." Gave me a little extra length just in case and seemed to make sense.
That evening I knitted the heel (DID forget to put the extra stitch I had on the pattern side back on the heel side so I was working with 29 sts instead of 30. Oh well, just one little stitch) and was looking at starting the leg when I realized that not only thank the good Lord I had that "knit only" row to get everything even, I did not even think about the way things were slanting and needed to slant when starting the pattern. I don't have much experience with lace. Things go every which way. I was having to start the pattern on a no pattern side and for the zig-zag to look right it needed to go left, not right, and I was so lucky to have stopped on the beginning of a "go left" slant. After some prayers of thanks (I really didn't need any progress in my life halted) I continued on and I'm almost an inch into the leg and everything is looking great. I've been tempted to try it on but haven't. Partially I'm concerned about stretching the lace pattern when the leg is still in it's infancy but the other is worried I've done socks too short, yet again, and I don't want to give these away. As you can see from above, frogging is not an option, and I don't want any more fictional divine characters mad at me, vowing to wreck havoc on my mudane existance. Or at least not just yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment