heel gone wrong

A bit of truth in knitting — not every experiment has a happy ending. Some are downright, er… heelish.

It started out innocently enough. I wanted a two-stitch band in the center of the heel to flow into the scale pattern where the heel joins the leg. And I wanted a scale on the heel to match where I was in the scale pattern on the foot. So I started wondering what Eye Of Partridge stitch would look like on the diagonal. Then I thought it would be cool if the EOP swooped around the scale and followed its shape.

See how quickly things can get out of control?

The red line follows a column of EOP stitches as they swoop up around the scale at the top of the heel flap. It looks sort of cool, but doesn’t have enough diagonal-ness. The color changes caused by the EOP slipped stitches obscure the directionality.

And then there’s that weird bump caused by the increase/decrease pair that starts the scale.

And then there’s that wonky corner caused by the decreases that force the EOP to run diagonally.

Ick.

a Simpsonized #1 Son

This heel is making its way to the great frog-pond in the sky, while I try to decide what I really want to do here.

I might try a regular slipped-stitch heel-stitch. It would be more strongly diagonal. And if I pulled it up into the ankle until the next scale started on the leg… that might look cool.

I’m not sure about the weird bump and the wonky corner. But they may block out. Or maybe I just need to have a more strongly vertical stitch or two at the side.

Hmmm…. must think about this…

On another note, I was having so much fun Simpsonizing myself, that I decided to Simpsonize #1 Son, too. No word yet on whether he appreciates my efforts.

And on a completely different note, New Pathways For Sock Knitters, Cat Bordhi’s new book, appeared in my mailbox last night. Gentle reader, you need this book. I promise to do a proper review soon, when I can carve out time to do it justice. For now, I will say that the book is gorgeous, and Cat’s new architectures are wild and cool and I now have socks running all around in my brain, and if I didn’t have such a hard-and-fast rule about finishing pairs of socks, the dragon scale socks and their heelish wonkiness may have found themselves instantly abandoned.

And I, being a total dork, keep peeping at page 22. I haven’t seen my name in print since I won honorable mention in a poetry contest I didn’t know I’d entered in the 6th grade, and the local paper printed the winners (and thus I found out I’d entered). I’m so honored to be included in something so beautiful.