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janestarzWell, I feel like a right dolt. I was happily knitting along and had already started the ankle gusset increases, when I realised there were no pictures of the finished leg section. Well, shoot!
Not only that, I had fudged a few of my increases. The pattern recommends increasing stitches by re-knitting a stitch from a row you've already knitted in the previous round. I had some difficulty with that particular technique, also because I was using yarn markers to show where I needed to increase. The yarn marker got a little fuzzy with use, the stitches are already tiny....I wasn't sure the result was worth taking a better look at, and to add insult to injury I noticed I also knitted the stitches on the back of the leg in preparation for the heel the wrong way.
Somewhat demotivated, I asked the rest of the KAL for help, and they said "screw that, nobody will notice anyway."
Of course, I realised I had to frog back to the beginning of the gusset, and take good pictures of the finished leg.
I re-did the gusset increases, using the same make-1-left and make-1-right I used on my Harvest Cardigan. I knitted the back of the leg like the pattern wanted me to do (you slip the knit stitches every other row, making for a - supposedly - sturdier heel) and took pictures of the finished gusset.
Then I turned the heel, which was a variation on a short-row heel. Knitting socks is very often a case of blindly following instructions & knowing your gauge. Knowing the gauge means you get a sock that fits well. Blindly following instructions often happens when turning a heel, as I found out in my last pair of socks. And although this was a variation on a heel I have some limited experience with, I still needed to very carefully read and 3D-imagine the instructions. It helps that I have some insight in what they want to achieve and how a short-row heel goes, because this heel would be more than challenging for a first-time knitter (but then, I know twisted stitches are not really beginner material either).
And once the heel was done, I took another picture. This is probably the point where I have to explain why I'm not showering you with pictures.
Three of the four photo's I took with my phone were blurry and unsharp*) What I do have is a very sharp, somewhat shiney-fied photo of the finished heel.
This is also the first picture showing (half of) the back of the sock. The back of the sock is mostly twisted rib, meaning the knit stitches stand out very nicely from the purled ones. You can see where I switched from twisted rib to the twisted rib-slip stitch alternating rows to get the "reinforced" part of the heel. It's just above the actual turn of the heel, where to stitches seem to become more loose and slightly bigger and the heel starts to curve outward. The start of it seems to coincide with a darker stripe.
On the opposite side of that curve, you see the gusset stitches, showing as a few ridges above the cable. This design features the increase at center-front, which is right where your foot is shapely at the top. (Or so I hope, I haven't tried on my sock except sliding the leg over my arm to see if it might stretch enough for my ankles.)
What it doesn't show is the tension-problems and laddering I still have where I go from needle to needle. I usually tuck a needle behind one ear, knit two extra stitches onto the old needle, and move my stitches around a bit to prevent laddering, but I can't do that until I have mastered the pattern perfectly or I will lose track of where my chart starts and ends.
It also doesn't show how the leg seems to want to twist and not lie flat, although you can see it in most of the pictures if you look closely.
Next steps.
The long run to the finish line! The foot of the sock is not exactly boring, but it is a lot easier than the twisted stitches. The top of the foot is a twisted rib, whereas the bottom has turned completely stockinette. But I must admit, I already miss my pretty cables.
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*) You have blurry, meaning the object or the camera was still moving slightly when the shutter closed, and you have unsharp, meaning the camera focused on the wrong point. Neither can be fixed very easily, but sometimes scaling the image down can make a blurry picture seem semi-sharp. I couldn't see the picture was unsharp on the phone because the screen is very tiny.
Not only that, I had fudged a few of my increases. The pattern recommends increasing stitches by re-knitting a stitch from a row you've already knitted in the previous round. I had some difficulty with that particular technique, also because I was using yarn markers to show where I needed to increase. The yarn marker got a little fuzzy with use, the stitches are already tiny....I wasn't sure the result was worth taking a better look at, and to add insult to injury I noticed I also knitted the stitches on the back of the leg in preparation for the heel the wrong way.
Somewhat demotivated, I asked the rest of the KAL for help, and they said "screw that, nobody will notice anyway."
Of course, I realised I had to frog back to the beginning of the gusset, and take good pictures of the finished leg.
I re-did the gusset increases, using the same make-1-left and make-1-right I used on my Harvest Cardigan. I knitted the back of the leg like the pattern wanted me to do (you slip the knit stitches every other row, making for a - supposedly - sturdier heel) and took pictures of the finished gusset.
Then I turned the heel, which was a variation on a short-row heel. Knitting socks is very often a case of blindly following instructions & knowing your gauge. Knowing the gauge means you get a sock that fits well. Blindly following instructions often happens when turning a heel, as I found out in my last pair of socks. And although this was a variation on a heel I have some limited experience with, I still needed to very carefully read and 3D-imagine the instructions. It helps that I have some insight in what they want to achieve and how a short-row heel goes, because this heel would be more than challenging for a first-time knitter (but then, I know twisted stitches are not really beginner material either).
And once the heel was done, I took another picture. This is probably the point where I have to explain why I'm not showering you with pictures.
Three of the four photo's I took with my phone were blurry and unsharp*) What I do have is a very sharp, somewhat shiney-fied photo of the finished heel.
This is also the first picture showing (half of) the back of the sock. The back of the sock is mostly twisted rib, meaning the knit stitches stand out very nicely from the purled ones. You can see where I switched from twisted rib to the twisted rib-slip stitch alternating rows to get the "reinforced" part of the heel. It's just above the actual turn of the heel, where to stitches seem to become more loose and slightly bigger and the heel starts to curve outward. The start of it seems to coincide with a darker stripe.
On the opposite side of that curve, you see the gusset stitches, showing as a few ridges above the cable. This design features the increase at center-front, which is right where your foot is shapely at the top. (Or so I hope, I haven't tried on my sock except sliding the leg over my arm to see if it might stretch enough for my ankles.)
What it doesn't show is the tension-problems and laddering I still have where I go from needle to needle. I usually tuck a needle behind one ear, knit two extra stitches onto the old needle, and move my stitches around a bit to prevent laddering, but I can't do that until I have mastered the pattern perfectly or I will lose track of where my chart starts and ends.
It also doesn't show how the leg seems to want to twist and not lie flat, although you can see it in most of the pictures if you look closely.
Next steps.
The long run to the finish line! The foot of the sock is not exactly boring, but it is a lot easier than the twisted stitches. The top of the foot is a twisted rib, whereas the bottom has turned completely stockinette. But I must admit, I already miss my pretty cables.
------
*) You have blurry, meaning the object or the camera was still moving slightly when the shutter closed, and you have unsharp, meaning the camera focused on the wrong point. Neither can be fixed very easily, but sometimes scaling the image down can make a blurry picture seem semi-sharp. I couldn't see the picture was unsharp on the phone because the screen is very tiny.
