Knitting Bonus = + 10 to Dexterity

Well, maybe not quite that many, but at least +5! After an intense battle with a sock heel my fingers dealt quad damage and the pattern finally submitted to my will.

I’ve been working on a pair of socks for Par with the MSU ArtYarn I got from Knit A Round. While I’m having fun making these socks, I’ve been fighting with them, too.

These socks are new territory for me, as most knitting still is. I decided to go the toe-up technique, and used this fabulous guide to start off my socks: Tiptop Toes.

After the toe increases it was smooth sailing, until I reached the point where I needed to start a heel. I didn’t want these to be tube socks, but the only heel experience I’d had to this point was a top-down heel flap with a gusset. With a toe-up sock I wasn’t sure what style of heel to use and set about looking at patterns. There were two options that I found: a short-row heel or a reverse heel flap. There are benefits to both, I read: short-row will work with almost any sock, but a heel flap allows for a better fit – especially if the person the sock is for has a slightly larger heel/instep ratio.

As I said, I’d never tried anything but a top-down heel flap but had heard the short-row was pretty easy to work with. It was fairly easy to work, but I was not thrilled with the result. I had gotten all the way through the short-row heel, feeling fairly confident in following the directions, but then I looked at the stitches. My technique is by no means perfect, but the stitching for the heel looked sloppy. If these socks had been for me I probably wouldn’t have cared but since they are for someone else I couldn’t accept sloppy work. I pulled out the heel and started over.

This time I tried to work a reverse heel flap met with extremely confusing directions. Perhaps I just found really complicated patterns, but as I worked through a couple patterns I kept getting stumped by awkward wording. As I read through the patterns I’m sure they lacked some important information. I kept searching, and finally found this pattern: You're Putting Me On. This particular pattern did not require wrapping of stitches, and once I worked out the ratios for my stitch numbers, it ended up working very well.

With the help of this pattern and a few modifications, I have now figured out how to make a decent constructed heel for toe-up socks. (I think I may post the modified heel instructions once these socks are finished.) Now, I just need to decrease the last bit of the heel on the one sock, knit the legs and bind them off. Hoorah!