Friday, October 15, 2010

Toe Up Heels

I've been working on my first pair of toe up socks. Wait, that's not right exactly, I did start another pair but had to frog them because the pattern was just too big for my foot. So this is the first pair that is actually gonna be finished. My goal is Sunday, since I started them last Sunday, I want to see if I can complete one sock in a week. However, I have a cold and that is slowing me down!
Anyway, I received a skein of Colinette Jitterbug yarn in a swap and I've wanted to try this yarn for some time now so I was really excited about it! After looking at project pictures of the yarn, I have colorway Mardi Gras, I decided a pattern was just going to be obscured by the bright colors and crazy pooling. That and I don't play well with patterns, especially sock patterns LOL Basically my socks are going to be plain vanilla but with ribbing along the top of the foot, hopefully this will keep them on better as I have problems with socks, storebought or handknit sliding down in my boots and that is very annoying!
Doing the toe up wasn't difficult, I cast on using the instructions from my previous toe up socks, the difference being these are magic loop as I've found I prefer it to DPNs. I've had no problem with the foot but the heel is confounding me!
So I turned to the internet (I've only one sock book and one pattern in it is toe up, that's it!). I could do an afterthought heel but that seemed a bit more work then I wanted to do. I discovered a few different ways of doing the heel but I didn't seem to like most of them (anything that involves x + y = z is evil).
These are the ones I liked best:
Wendy Johnson's toe up sock pattern She's written many sock books so she really knows her stuff! I like her pattern but it involves wrap and turn and I don't have a good track record with that - i.e. my sisters' doll slings that still aren't done.
This site lists several different links to other toe up formulas on the net. Quite handy since it led me to:
Fleegle's Blog This is the one that makes the most sense to me. No wrap and turn, no algebra, just basically a gusset. Gussets, I'm good at! I understand them, I know how to knit them, and it isn't that difficult either! I guess really this isn't a short row heel like I'd originally looked up but it works for me and I understand the instructions, double whammy there :)
Any other good toe up heel instructions out there that I didn't find or list? I'd like to try two at a time toe up next!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Time for a Change

I like to blog, I really do. The problem is sometimes I don't want to talk about knitting. So, I've decided to change the blog a bit. I still will talk about knitting - it is why I started the blog after all - but I'm also going to include other things like book/tv/dvd reviews, my ramblings about the coolest names, giveaways (hopefully. Anyone wanna host one?), and maybe some reviews like the upcoming CSN review (No, I did not forget about that - it's coming later this week). Also, anything else I feel like talking about!
I hope my followers understand this move and still like to follow :) Thanks!

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