Bo Diddley socks

Who do you love?

I’m lovin’ my socks, oh yeah! I think I could walk 47 miles in them. But I will skip the barbed wire, the cobra snake necktie, and snakeskin houses with skull chimneys. (That should guarantee that Bo Diddley fans will get here and wonder how the heck they ended up on a knitting blog. They have good company in all of the Bob Dylan fans that get here searching for Tangled Up In Blue.)

But I digress.

I’m lovin’ my new socks. And because Who Do You Love kept going through my head every time I knit on them, I am hereby dubbing these the Bo Diddley Socks.

I really wanted to get a pic of them slithering through the grass or posed along a tree limb, but yesterday when I took these pictures it was raining cats and dogs. So instead they are tip-toe on a chair next to the window – the only light that was available. The color is pretty true on my monitor.

Notice how the first scale starts on the toe near the end and follows the line of the toe increases. Sort of. That was the plan, anyway. Go ahead and click on the picture to biggy-size it. I’ll wait.

dragon scale pattern

This picture shows the Dragon Scale pattern up the leg. Pretty, isn’t it? I love the way the pattern plays with the little short blings of color in this yarn.

I think the pattern sort of resembles the up-and-down action that occurs in other chevron-style stitch patterns, like what is found on the Jaywalker socks. But this pattern is much stretchier than Jaywalkers are.

I used a picot bind-off because I thought the little points would look cool and snake-ish with the scales. I didn’t bind off in the traditional sense. I just tacked the live stitches down inside using a sort of duplicate stitch, so the cuffs are really stretchy. Note that the cuff is vaguely wavy on top, still following the scale pattern.

The other choice for a cuff would have been to replace the last row of scales with ribbing. The bottom of the ribbing would have followed the line of the scales, allowing the previous row of scales to complete. I think that would have looked cool also. Maybe next time (if there is a next time). I’ll see how well these stay up with no ribbing.

Bo Diddley heel

That was what I did here on the heel: The heel stitch ends when the scale starts, so it follows the line of the scales up into the leg. You will recall, gentle reader, that this is the second attempt at a heel. The first attempt was not so happy.

I really do like this heel, though. I’ve been known to stop perfectly nice people in their tracks and demand they look at it because it’s just so pretty.

I love the way that the scale curves down into the heel.

The heel, apart from the scale, is worked in standard heel stitch, with one exception: There is a double-slip-stitch in the middle to match the center two stitches of the scale.

Oh, yeah… and they fit really, really well, too. I can’t wait until it’s cold enough to wear them!

There is a new pair of socks on my needles (like you couldn’t have guessed that). They are one of Cat’s new sockitectures. I will have more info and pics tomorrow or the next day.

Bo Diddley heel

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Koigu KPPPM (100% Superwash merino/ 50gr, 160m per skein) in colorway P342 (multi-grays with little blings of rainbow colors) — most of two skeins.
• Needles: two 24″ Addi Lace circulars, US#1 (2.5mm).
• Pattern: modified Dragon Scales from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury Of Knitting Patterns, used with my own standard sock pattern, more or less.
• Techniques used:
  • Knit toe-up, two at a time, on double circulars.
  • I used the Magic Cast On.
  • The heel flap is worked in heel stitch, with two slipped stitches in the center to flow into the scale on the back of the leg.
  • Picot cuff, live stitches sewn down inside (stretchier than first binding off).

dragon scales

The Koigu and I had words.

After it practically crawled out of the stash bin, insisting that it must be knit, I wasn’t going to let it get away with not telling me what it wanted to be. Several swatches later, I forced it to cough up its secret.

It had delusions of dragon-ness.

The stitch pattern is Dragon Skin, from one of the Barbara Walker Treasuries. The stitch pattern, as written, didn’t fit into the gauge I got going around my foot with the Koigu. I had two choices: I could make the pattern smaller, fitting more repetitions in one round. Or, I could make the stitch pattern larger, with fewer reps in a round. I opted for the latter because I thought that the larger scales would play with the colorway better. I love the way that the yarn is mostly grays, with little blings of gold and orange and green and blue.

If I were a dragon, I wouldn’t mind being gray if I could wear multi-colored sparkles.

keychain sock blocker

And this is a little keychain sock-blocker that I knit a little sock for. It will be going to my Sockapalooza pal along with the Java Leaf Socks.

The yarn is a tiny bit of leftover Seasilk from another project. When going through the stash looking for the last of the Cherry Tree Hill so the little sock would match the bigger socks, I ran across the Seasilk. Since the colors are reasonably from the same family, I thought it would be fun for my Sock Pal to have an almost-matching but slightly swankier keychain.

There may be a few other things coming my Sock Pal’s way, too. 😀

Now… I have a question for you, gentle reader.

Saturday I went to a muggle party. It was a fun party and I had a great time. As we all sat around the back yard (perfect BBQ weather), sipping on beverages-of-our-choice and such, I whipped out the dragon scale socks and started knitting.

Is that a nervous habit that you have? one of the other guests asked me.

Nervous habit? I replied. I have to admit I was sort of speechless — and you know, gentle reader, how rare that is! But I really wasn’t quite sure how to respond when my chosen craft was relegated to the level of… I don’t know… a twitch or foot tap or something.

I knit because I really enjoy it and it’s relaxing, I finally said.

The other guest nodded. But I could see that I had just validated for her that what I did was… A Nervous Habit – capitalized, but nervous nonetheless.

I was a bit put out. But after I thought about it… I knit when I’m waiting in line, or I have a quiet moment, or I want to keep my hands busy, or I want to relax.

What do you think? Is there a tiny grain of truth in that question? Is knitting nothing more than A Nervous Habit, or should all nervous habits somehow be raised to the level of craft?

P.S. For those who commented on the Brioche stitch on the Java Leaf Socks. I wasn’t sure if that’s what I should really call it. The first round is worked as YO, K1, P1, repeat. In the second round, the YO and K1 are knit together, and the P1 is purled. So, while the knit stitches are, I guess, technically Brioche, there’s the purl stitches there that make it… something else. Brioche rib?

“official” PDX KBs sign

I will post about Boston and the fun stuff I did there later — when / if I finally get organized. But first I want to tell you about the wonderful time I had yesterday at the first PDX Knit Bloggers meet-up.

The PDX Knit Bloggers group was born when several of us were blown away by the number of people who had their hand raised when The Yarn Harlot asked how many people in the Portland area blogged. There’s a bunch of us. So of course, being both bloggers and knitters, a little gathering was necessary!

The official sign was provided by Bobbie’s husband Tool Man. I love it!

PDX Knit Bloggers

Be sure to click on this picture to see the biggy-size version. I stitched it together from several pictures, so some of the angles of tables and such might look a little wonky. But it gives you an idea of how many people where there. This represents about 1/2 of the bloggers that have joined the PDX Knit Bloggers list.

Knit Purl provided us with a space, iced tea, ice water, and door prizes. And… well… cookies and brownies where there also and I did try a couple. 😆 It was sooooo cool to see everyone and the lovely projects they are working on. I laughed and laughed and chatted and commiserated and celebrated and had a wonderful time.

Kathy, who is much more organized than this intrepid reporter (I didn’t even managed to remember to bring paper and pencil) kept a list of the attendees, so I’ve stolen this from her (thanks, Kathy!):

• Angela – The Enchanted Daffodil
• Barbara (and her incredible knit-enabling partner) – The String And I
• Bobbie – Tiggywinkle Knits
• Chrispy – Pursuit of Fiber
• Cindy – Knit For Joy
• Dawn – Dawn’s Projects
• Deb – Fearless Fibers
• Duffy – FiberQat
• Karen – non blogger (for now) who is *just* starting to knit and will be starting a blog as soon as she decides what blog service to use
• Kelley (and fluffy non-knitter Xena) – Yarn Rambles
• Kathy – Vast Amount Of Spare Time
• Lynn – The New Homemaker
• Melissa – Days of Tea and Knitting
• Mims & Peggy – k2tog
• Monica – Animorphia
• Patty – Fiberly One
• Rodger – Over Abundance
• Sara – the quacking fiber addict
• Tammy – Lavender Knits
• Teresa – who works at Knit Purl and is starting a store blog soon

a bit of yarny stuff

Did I mention there were door prizes? People with stickers under their chairs were treated to a little surprise. Mine was the Shibui Merino Alpaca in Bark that you see in the upper right of this picture.

In the upper left of the picture is hand-dyed superwash sock yarn from Fearless Fiber’s Etsy shop in colorway Marrakesh. This is wonderful, sprongy, 100% merino yarn that has been rainbow-dyed in a gorgeous and subtle combination of different greens with touches of mustard and bronze. The picture doesn’t begin to show how lovely this yarn is in person. Go, now, over to Fearless Fibers and check out Deb’s lovely yarns and patterns. Yum!

In the bottom row… Well, Knit Purl is a yarn shop. L-R: Colinette Jitterbug in Jay, Shibui Sock in Stone, Koigu KPPPM in P342 – a mostly gray/brown with flecks and short runs of bright orange/green/yellow/red/blue, and finally Artyarns Ultramarino in 139 (don’t you love colorways named with numbers?) – I had to have this because the colors are exactly the PI blog blues and greens, and how perfect is that?

The Clapotis That… Ended After All

It’s done! It’s done! It’s done! It’s DONE! Oh yeah! Doin’ the happy dance, oh yeah!

Can you tell I’m pleased, gentle reader?

It’s been a long, hard slog over two years during which I was distracted by many bright, shiny new projects. But at last it is finished. The never-ending song has ended. Ah…..

I slogged away all weekend on the thing. All weekend. I kept wondering why I had decided to knit the thing in this rather unbecoming blah gray. I almost didn’t bother to weave the ends in because… meh. But in the end I did. Then I gave it a bit of a wash in my front-loader on handwash cycle, and plopped it in a pile on the rack in my drier on low heat. Because it’s a Clapotis, after all, and really doesn’t need any blocking. And then I realized that, if I wanted a picture I’d better darn well hurry because the light was going. And it still wasn’t dry. So I took the rack out and popped that baby in the drier and gave it a good go-round on medium heat, because really after two years and steady weekend knitting I was a little sick of the thing anyway and if it felted a bit… well… that would not detract from its charm because at the time I was feeling that it didn’t have any, and wasn’t the cotton content high enough to prevent that? And this is in no way to be construed as advice that you pop your Silky Tweed in the drier!

And then I took it out of the drier. Hmmmmm… it’s soft. Oh. It blocked itself perfectly in the drier. And look how nicely it drapes. It’s actually sort of the color of very faded favorite jeans. Not really gray. But blue gray with some flecks of other colors in it. Hmmmm…. And then I hung it over a branch of my cherry tree and watched it ruffle in the breeze as the late afternoon sun slanted through the grapes. And then I tossed it casually around my shoulders as I picked a few fresh strawberries and took a brief turn around the yard to see if the neighbors’ turtle (missing a week now) had decided to pay a visit after all. oooo… it’s just the right size to be big and cozy.

And then I fell in love.

I can’t believe I let this poor thing languish in a bag for two years! It’s slated now to go with me to work, where its destiny is to provide a bit of warmth on cold days (cold because of the weather or the deep-freeze air conditioner).

The particulars:

• Yarn: Elspeth Lavold Silky Tweed (40% Silk, 30% Cotton, 20% Merino Wool, 10% Viscose), color #13 (Cool Blue) (Note: ball band long ago lost, but that’s what I reported in a long-ago post.)
• Needles: Various over the years, ending with Knitpicks circulars, US#6 (4mm)
• Pattern: Clapotis, with a minor modification. I increased through one skein, knit straight until I had one skein left, and decreased through the last skein. It worked, as I used every inch of yarn and had to fudge the last couple of decreases to have enough, but the fudging isn’t noticeable at all.

cute little scissor keeper

In other new, I wasn’t able to attend the Black Sheep Gathering this year in Eugene. I can’t wait to see the reports from those who did. It’s always suck a fabulous fiberly time! Ahhh… all that yarn. It’s a yarn collector’s paradise, it is!

So instead I had to content myself with a little purchase from The Loopy Ewe. Just a little one. Because I needed yarn for my sock pall, you know. Yeah. That’s what it was. It wasn’t to assuage the pain of my BSG-less existence. No shopping therapy here, nosiree!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I spent some very nice time looking at all of the wonderful things at The Loopy Ewe. Look at these little scissors with the little scissor-keeper on a fob that clips to the handle so it doesn’t get lost when carelessly tossed into a little sock bag and bounced around inside a purse. Isn’t that the cutest thing?

Don’t you agree that I needed to have this? Head over to The Loopy Ewe and look at all of the lovely, fun, bright colors it comes in. You know you want to.

Ack! I’m starting to sound like a pusher! 😆

java leaf swatch

There might have been some yarn involved in this purchase, also. Just a little. This is Cherry Tree Hill in Java.

I haven’t knit with this yarn before, but I now understand why people are raving about it. Lovely, lovely stuff. Fun to knit. This is the second swatch I’ve done. I found that I really need a size US#0 (2mm) to get a nice, dense fabric.

The stitch pattern is a vining leaf design from an old, old book I borrowed from V at Tangle. I don’t know if it’s also in one of Barbara Walkers books or not. I would be surprised if it isn’t. What looks like ribbing on the sides is actually a brioche stitch. I modified the pattern just a little — instead of cabling the stem stitches with the background, I did a m1, k2tog. It looks OK and will be less annoying to work than two-stitch cables every single row.

I’m considering this for my sock pal’s socks. Since I usually work an all-over pattern, and since I usually knit in brighter or lighter colors, this is a departure for me in more than one direction. But I think it will be a fun knit.

What do you think, gentle reader?

This is the lecturn that Powell’s Books provides for guest speakers. Cool, isn’t it? I love the book stack and the faux shelf of books at the top. Just below the faux book shelf is a place where books (I guess most frequently written by the guest speaker) can be displayed during an event. Like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, for example.

This lectern is large enough to almost entirely hide Stephanie, except for her head from the chin up.

I’ve missed The Yarn Harlot the last couple of times she traveled to Stumptown. I almost missed her this time.

I looked online to see if there was a bus or something that runs from where I work to Powell’s, because I knew that finding a place to park would be nearly impossible. Portland has this wonderful invention called fareless square. You can ride any of the mass-transit options for free, as long as you stay within this area. I work at one end. Powell’s is at the other. Free ride — how often does that happen? And, it turns out that the Portland Streetcar, which stops only a block from work, would drop me off and pick me up right next to Powell’s. How perfect is that?

Then the only issue was to get out of work early enough that I could ride the incredibly slow charming streetcar and still get to Powell’s in time to get a seat. I did kinda have a clue what was going to happen. 😆

When I arrived at 5:30, there were already a goodly number of knitters in attendance, but I managed to get a great seat.

Powell’s main store is so large (an entire block), and so maze-like that the different areas of the store are painted different colors so it’s easier to find your way around. I’m sure that it’s much simpler for employees, when asked for directions, to answer go through the Blue Room, then down the stairs and through the Gold Room. Stephanie would be speaking in the (I am not making this up) Pearl Room.

But now perhaps they will rename the Pearl Room the Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Room.

As I arrived, the intrepid Powell’s employees were cramming as many folding chairs as they could into the open area in front of and to either side of the lectern. Apparently they partially learned their lesson after last year, when they booked her into the tiny Powell’s Home & Garden store and did not even provide a microphone.

By 7:15, Powell’s looked like this. Powell’s tried to limit the audience to a number reasonable for the area provide, and closed the door when the limit was reached. I’m not sure of the truth to the rumors that a few knitters simply bypassed the closed door by taking the elevator. Would knitters do that? 😆 At any rate, by the time Stephanie arrived, it was standing room only, and the aisles were crammed.

I saw so many people! Nurse Knitter was there, T, Lori – she had her socks with her and they look great. I sat right behind Monica, who has cards for her blog! And I saw several people who I met at the Magical Moebius Festival and I love you all and I know I’m forgetting bunches of people and I’m sorry. I’m a dork. Next time I will take better notes. But I kept trying to finish the little baby socks, which were barely past the toe increases when I left work.

Everyone was knitting. I tell you, you’ve never seen so many knitters in one place. And we all had a bunch of fun showing each other what we were knitting. And I, being a dork, just had a lot of fun listening to the snippets of conversation around me:

It was the perfect gray cashmere, so I had to buy it.

This is the third sock I’ve started.

(said very earnestly) Sometimes, when you frog something out, you just need to let the yarn rest a little while and then it almost seems like it’s brand new when you start to knit with it again. It’s almost as good as actually buying new yarn. But not quite.

Stephanie was funny and witty and earnest. I loved her talk about knitting and knitters and the amazing things we can do when we put our minds to it. She started by describing what a worrier she was. Having grown up with a command-performance worrier in the form of my Mama, I laughed and laughed because the description rang so true. Stephanie worried about all of the sheep in the world suddenly losing all of their fleece. She asked us to picture the battles between crocheters and knitters over the last of the yarn. Crochet, you know, is so much faster!

Most of the time, Stephanie had us all in stitches (pun intended). The part about she and Joe attending a swanky cocktail party, and what it meant to admit she was a knitting author, was particularly funny. And there were boos (aimed towards the banks involved) when she mentioned Blue Moon’s problems with their bank over their sock club orders. And the issues another woman had when trying to get a business loan to open an online yarn store. There were cheers when she talked of the amazement from another fund raiser at the speed (72 hours) with which knitters could double the amount donated via Tricoteuses Sans Frontières (Knitters Without Borders). At this writing, an amazing $320,093 has been donated.

There was time for a couple of questions afterwards. Someone asked about the traveling sock taken hostage at BEA by Ann and Kay. Stephanie was pleased to announce that her no negotiation policy had payed after all, and the sock was on its way home.

Then it was time to get in the long, long, long line. And my true dorkiness began to shine.

As I prepared to gather my stuff together, a very nice woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was the magic cast-on lady. I admitted that I was. She said some very kind words about the cast-on and how pleased she was to meet me. And I thanked her and asked her name (which I think was Terry? And if it wasn’t or if I’ve spelled it wrong, please let me know right away so I can fix it, because I’m such a dork with names). I picked my stuff up to get it out of the way of all of the knitters who were stumbling over my purse (I’ve driven cars that were smaller) and my other junk. And the lovely lady came back with Melody (who gave me her card, sparing me from totally humiliating myself by forgetting her name, too).

It turns out that they had come all the way from Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, to see the Harlot. So we had Idaho in common, I being born and raised in Idaho Falls and not only knowing where Coeur d’ Alene is but how to pronounce it. Melody owns Harmony Yarn Studio, which looks like such a cool little store. I will definitely visit if I’m ever in the area.

This is so big, for me to meet you, Melody said, can we please take my picture with you? And that rendered me totally speechless and feeling all weirdly cool and embarrassed at the same time, and of course I was happy to oblige. They were both so sweet and kind and fun to meet.

And the picture… it was pretty hot in the Pearl room, and it was pretty humid. Yeah… The incredible expandomatic hair was at it again. When I gasped ohmygod, my hair!, Melody kindly replied, don’t worry. We’ll explain about the hair.

Now… I’ve been trying to explain about my hair for years and years. 🙄 I wish her luck with that. Melody, if you are reading this, maybe you can send me the explanation so I can use it in the future? I’m serious.

And then I went to stand in line. And then I remembered that I had neither taken a picture of the Harmony Yarn ladies or written down the first ones name. And now, of course, it was way too late to do that. And I banged my head against the nearest bookshelf a few times in lieu of kicking my own rear end, because I’m a dork. Harmony Yarn ladies, you were wonderful and I am not usually quite so spacey.

The line went on and on and on and moved very, very slowly. So slowly that I actually finished the baby socks while I stood in line. Babies have such tiny feet, as we’ve already established.

I knit for about 4 hours straight, while waiting for Stephanie, while she spoke, while waiting in line. It was a bit too much for my hands. By the time I got to the head of the line, my hands were hurting and clumsy and my brain was beginning to shut off even more than it already had, if that were possible. Low blood sugar? Yeah… that’s my story for what happened next, and I’m sticking to it.

Stephanie was just as warm up close, in person, as I knew she would be. I said, nice to meet you, and passed over my book calmly, and then gushed can my socks meet your sock? Stephanie giggled and said of course they could, because her tours were really about socks meeting and not about books at all. After some fumbling, I managed to partially untangle the two pairs of socks in my little knitting bag, so Stephanie is holding both the Spanish Lavender Basket Wave socks and the little baby socks, along with her traveling sock.

Book signed and picture taken, Stephanie looked closer at the Basket Wave socks and stroked the yarn a little.

That’s the Rockin’ Sock Club yarn for April — Silkie Socks That Rock in Walking on the Wild Tide. I’m not knitting the club pattern, but I’m pleased with the results. I said.

Or that’s what I meant to say.

Instead I suffered from total brain freeze and said, that’s the… that’s the… that’s the…

Yeah, Stephanie nodded. It’s the Silkie stuff. It looks nicer knitted up than in the skein.

Thank you, I croaked, and began gathering up my stuff because I knew that she was tired and there was still a line of knitters behind me and I couldn’t talk and I needed to disappear quickly into a hole in the ground because I couldn’t make my mouth work along with my brain.

I was carrying my purse (small cars, etc.), my knitting bag containing yarn and various tools, the two pairs of socks on two circs each – now outside the bag, my sweater, Stephanie’s book. My hands were very clumsy, and I kept dropping things. I picked up the bag and dropped the book. I picked up the book and dropped a pair of socks. I picked up the socks and dropped the other socks. I picked up the socks and dropped the bag, and the socks, and my sweater. ohmygod I wanted to just die.

Take your time, Stephanie said. Do you need help?

No, no, no. I’m so sorry. I managed to get out. Then I finally captured all of my errant objects and made my escape.

Ugh. How embarrassing was that? Gentle reader, isn’t that the most extreme case of dorkiness you’ve ever heard of?

I know. It’s the universe’ way of keeping me humble.

P.S. In case anyone wondered, I’m watching the Portland Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade right now. It’s raining. Tradition is preserved.

I’m still fighting the cold thing, and the work thing, and the other distract-Judy-from-knitting things. How many pictures of half-finished socks and crumpled sweater pieces and long-forgotten UFOs can I show you, gentle reader, before you run screaming from this blog?

So, in stead of not-much-has-happened pics, I offer you this little video of the snow falling on my back yard last Monday. It was so pretty! I wish I had taken a longer shot. The thing that looks like a weird rope hanging on the left is one of my grape vines. I didn’t have shoes on, so shot this while leaning out the back door. Yeah… that’s how big my back yard is. I have tablecloths that are larger. But that’s OK.

PoliticalCritic (do you knit, too?) asks:

How is the weather normally in Portland? I’m on the east coast, but am considering a job out there? Does it rain as much as Seattle?

Personally, I love the Portland area and can’t imagine living anywhere else. But that’s just me. Does it rain as much… you know, I’m not sure. I think it might rain a little more in inches in our fair neighbor to the north. But we certainly have as many gloomy days. It’s a little warmer here in Portland. Seattle gets more snow, but snow here is a rare occasion as is freezing rain. December and January are hard to slog through. But we usually have some lovely spring-ish weather in February. September is glorious. And the rain? You don’t have to shovel it…

In other, non-knitting news, you will recall that #1 Son and I usually head to Las Vegas for a few days over the Christmas holidays. We see a show, take a tour, I do a little gambling, #1 Son does a little sleeping. It’s quite an enjoyable interlude.

This year, #1 Son has informed me that a tour has been booked for the time between Christmas and New Years because that is the only time that they can all go, and so he will not be available to go to Vegas. But maybe we could do something before or after the tour? I pointed out that the time between Christmas and New Years is all of the time that I have off, too.

I admit to being in a snit for a few days.

How dare he? How dare he grow up and act like a responsible adult and have a life and make plans that didn’t include his mom? How dare he?

Then I realized how stupid that sounded. I mean really.

So I will go to Vegas by myself. Why not? Vegas is lots of fun… it will mean more gambling time, right? Hopefully my pocket book will hold out!

I can report that the class socks are nearing completion. I’m almost out of yarn, so the end will come most likely today. Nothing else has progressed past the point you last saw it.

~Kristie opines:

I guess the stripe effect on your socks looks different because there is NO pooling!! LUCKY LUCKY!

I will try and post a finished pic tomorrow, and you will see that the socks never pooled. On the gussets the stripes changed a bit, but still didn’t pool. Ever.

I can’t take credit for it because pooling / not pooling is always, for me, completely beyond my control. I am open to any/all suggestions because, believe me, I don’t like things to be beyond my control. Just ask #1 Son (see above).

hpny knits offers:

striping socks- hmmm, some stripes depend on # of st per round, and changing that just a bit- can get it right.

So right! But I hate to choose between the correct stitch number for the yarn and having socks that fit.

One of my challenges is that my feet are skinny, so when making socks for myself I use a small number of stitches per round than average for my size of sock. That throws the pattern off sometimes. There’s not much I can do about the width of my feet, as much as I would like to!

I also like to knit a flap-and-gusset heel. Increasing for the gusset offers another challenge in that the number of stitches changes and throws off the yarn colors again. I could alleviate this by knitting a short-row heel. But short-row heels don’t fit my feet as well because I have high arches. So, again, I could have well-fitting socks or socks that stripe nicely.

It’s a conundrum, gentle reader.