------------------------------- ------------------------------------ On and Off The Needles

Friday, May 25, 2007

Afterthought

I can't say that this will be my "go to" heel in the future. It definitely has it's place in the sock knitting world though. You can't beat the simplicity - it's just knitting a toe. For me, it took a few rips and repeats to make it fit. I needed three plain rows at the beginning of the heel, and decreased every other row until there were 36 stitches left (I started with 72 sts - 66 original and 3 additional on each side that I picked up from the corners), then I decreased every row until there were 20 stitches total. It took a few tries to figure out how far I needed to decrease every other row, then switch to every row. My first effort produced too shallow a heel. My second, too deep. The third, just right.
Heart Crook Heel Done

I have not totally finished the sock - all it needs is a kitchner to close the heel, and some ribbing. In order to use up all this amazing yarn, and make the socks as tall as possible, I'm going to knit the second sock and then see if I can add more to the first. In order to make my life more difficult, I will probably just knit from the outside of the balls so I don't have to break and re-attach to the first sock.
Should be a nice, tangled mess!

With this heel, I found I had the same problems I have with the short row heel - holes in the corners.

Afterthought Heel - Side View
I can just stitch them shut, but I tried a few different ways of picking up additional stitches - each resulting in holes. Maybe next time, instead of knitting in waste yarn, I'd just knit the heel right then and there. Eliminate the effort of snipping and picking up stitches. (Kind of makes it a "CurrentThought" Heel rather than an Afterthought, huh?)

It is a neat and tidy heel though. And, it folds nice and flat.
Afterthought Heel

With the long holiday weekend coming up, I'm not anticipating too much knitting time. I have both Tucker and Ravin entered in a three day agility trial, and it's supposed to be really warm (like high 80's!). I have a feeling I may just end up vegging out in my comfy chair and watch the dogs go by.

I hope everyone enjoys their official gateway to summer weekend!