June 2, 2004

Feet Treat

Hello Darlings, and sorry for the day off yesterday. I was burned out from the birth, had a post-partum visit to make, and all my regular work sort of caught up with me and beat me half to death. Megan's hamster passed away, requiring a funeral and backyard burial. I'm back on top now. (Well, not really. My house is so messy that If my mother came to the door right now I'd flatten myself on the living room floor and play dead till she wandered off.) Naturally, instead of cleaning, I did this.

laurie's-socks


I am so in love with these socks that I can scarcely breathe. For the first time in a while I'm glad that it's cold and rainy in Toronto, just so I can wear them. (By the way...if you live in the Toronto area and are interested in helping me to build an ark...I'm looking for someone with a big enough backyard.) These were my first short row heel socks, and I'm still sort of neutral about them. This could be because there is a very real possibility that I do not fully understand the short row heel. I've never really looked at pattern for one, and my research for this heel consisted of admiring the socks that Laurie was wearing on Friday. I should have at least asked her to take them off...admiring a moving target from a metre away leaves some detail to the imagination but I thought that the pattern for a short row heel would be in " Folk Socks", but I was mistaken. (The fact that the pattern wasn't in Folk Socks is remarkable. I swear I thought every heel was in there.)

Now. Let's recap. I have decided to make a short row heel. I don't know how to make a short row heel, and in fact, have only a vague concept of what it should look like. Yet...this is the heel I want, and this (whatever it is) is the heel I should have. Any knitter coming to this fork in the road has options. They are usually as follows.
1. Email Laurie and ask her for more details about the heel.
2. Consult the thousands of sock patterns available on the web and in my very own home until I find an example of the short row heel so that I may "grok" the very essence of it and make it my own.
3. Abandon all logic and sit down and knit what I believe is a short row heel based on the vague look I had at Laurie's socks, the talk I have heard about short row heels and my understanding of human anatomy. Note that if I were to choose this option, I would do so with the full understanding that it is probably the most difficult of the three options, the one most likely to frustrate me, and the option that has the highest probability of not making a short row heel.

Once again, let's stay away from any kind of psychological analysis about what it means that we all know which option I chose.

When all was said and done, here is what I did:
-knit across 50% of the stitches, wrap and turn.
-purl back to the last of the 50%, wrap and turn.
-knit across to the stitch before the wrap I already did, wrap and turn.
-purl back to the stitch before the wrap I already did, wrap and turn.

Repeat the last two rows until I had used all the stitches. Realize that human heels are not freaking pointy, and yank back until there are some unworked stitches in the middle. Pour a glass of wine, hold the half heel up to my foot, realize that it is in the wrong spot, yank back the whole heel, knit a few more rounds, and knit the first part of the heel again (refraining from foul language so as not to despoil Laurie's beautiful yarn). Yank this back as I realize that while I have knit the heel on 50% of the stitches, it is not the 50% on the bottom (or the top...which could have been worked out) but instead the heel is on the SIDE of the foot. Pour more wine, to drink while ripping back the heel (still keeping the language as clean as possible to protect the beautiful yarns virtue) and start again (wondering vaguely if the wine is helping).

Get the heel in the right spot, and proceed,
-knit to the first wrapped stitch, pick up the wrap and knit it with the stitch. Turn
-purl to the first wrapped stitch, pick up the wrap and purl it with the stitch, turn.

I repeated this until I had worked all the stitches and it sort of looked like a heel.
I stress "sort of". It also looked "sort of" like a toe. This may or may not be normal, I reiterate that I have no idea what I'm doing. You can see how it looks in the top photo, and kinda folded here...

shortrowheel

You tell me... Is this a short row heel?

Posted by Stephanie at June 2, 2004 11:43 AM