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.
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…
You tell me… Is this a short row heel?
Yarn Harlot
Looks like one to me. Decent instructions can be found in PGR’s sock book, and I think there were instructions in a relatively recent issue of Knitty.
I hate them, they don’t fit my foot.
Ellen the Incrementalist
Yup, a classic short row heel. And…. it looks gorgeous on those feet!
Absolutely not one of the setbacks you describe could have been averted by studying patterns on the net for hours. Well…. one, that you leave some stitches unworked in the middle, but how long did it take to fix that?
The only difference I see between your short row heel and the one I often use (from Wendy, I think) suggests wrapping the stitch a second time.
See Wendy’s free generic toe up pattern for details.
Yours looks super!
Looks about right to me, too. (The pointy-ness goes away somewhat after a few wearings.) I used the Twisted Sisters directions — they are the clearest I’ve found. (But run, run away from their explanation of the Kirchener stitch!)
Knitting socks is much more important than cleaning the house. 🙂
My condolences re: the hamster.
They fit, they’re comfy? Then the heel is right, whether it’s someone else’s heel design or your own intuitive, if slightly inebriated invention. Is your contrast yarn black, or charcoal? Whatever you used, it’s perfect.
That yarn is so incredible, I may never knit another sock again until Laurie begins marketing this miracle.
(Laurie, I have been known to pay large amounts of money for yarn far less lovely than this…)
That’s a short row heel, alright. Something I often do, though, is to knit the heel on more like 60% of the stitches. Makes it deeper, which fits my heel better. I’ll second the PGR reccommendation… instead of ‘wraps’, she uses YO’s. Somehow, when I tried the wrap method, I always ended up with a rather lacy effect. But the YO’s work for me. (I don’t, however, suggest buying ‘Simple Socks’… the only thing useful to me was the 6 page section on the short row heel.)
OMG! Serious yarn and sock envy. I have the burning desire to drag out my drop spindle, figure it out, learn how to dye, learn how to navajo ply…. Sigh. Nah. I’ll just drool over your photos of that fantastic, lovely, truly wonderful socks, made with fantastic yarn, and showcasing some nifty short-row heels.
It matters not to me what the hell it is, I covet those damn socks. I’m still mad at you for showing them to me, coz now I’m going to be stuck in sock envy purgatory until I knit a damn pair, and for that, I may never be able to forgive you. 😉 That yarn is just devastating. DEVASTATING! I need to know this Laurie person. Stat!
The socks are beautiful. I knew you were a goddess and would figure it out! I can’t do a proper short row heels without instructions let alone on my own. The colors are just yummy!
We had a rodent death yesterday as well. My condolences.
Next time for kicks, try an afterthought heel.
Through the IK website, you can get the PGR pattern.
What great socks!!! I haven’t seen any like these before! ^_^
yep, that’s it. I wish you had taken pics of the one with the heel on the side of the foot just for giggles though.
So sorry about the hamster. I have 10 labrador puppies…. I could send you one. Do you have a color/gender preference?
Gorgeous socks! I’m in sock envy too. I hate short row heels. I have battled them several different ways and decided I still hate them. Can do them, but don’t wanna. I want to figure out how to do a heel flap, toe up.
Everything they said and then some. (AND I’m glad to be spared screwing with short-row heels.)Enough to reconcile one to this long, cool, soggy spring.
But Harlotele, dahling — it was Tuesday? Shouldn’t you have been spinning? (sound of heavy object hitting wall where rams was standing, cleft hooves clattering away.)No, really (duck,smash) those gift fibers? Don’t I hear their tiny piping voices, however cardboard-muffled?
As I have yet to conquer my Fear of Socks (Rachael swears she can help with that), I have no idea about what constitutes a proper short-row heel. I can only say that the socks are breathtaking and I too will be forced to live in Sock Envy Purgatory until I get my 15 projects off the needles and feel competent enough to attempt a Sock.
Those socks are beautiful, and look great on! Laurie could make some serious sales here – ask for commission !
Sorry about the hampster; when our daughter’s gerbil died it was tragic for her. At the moment, however, I am sorely tempted to kill a few rodents who were NOT invited to live with us!
I have only ever done short row heels, and I think they’re fun. I haven’t wrapped stitches, or used YO’s, I always knit to the right spot, k2tog, k1, turn. Then do the same thing going the other way, purling of course. You always know where you are because you knit the two together that have the big gap between them. My basic pattern I draw from is in the nice “Anatomy of a Basic Sock” article in the 2004 Knit It! from Better Homes and Gardens. http://www.bhg.com. The cover features a girl overrun by eyelash yarn. BTW, I received the Beehive Sock book like yours that I bought on eBay. Pretty cool. The photos crack me up. Especially the one with the horse silhouettes in the background.
LauraA – that’s how the heel on the socks I just finished went. I thought it rather intuitive and easy. I have never done the wrappy thing. I’m just not into that kind of music.
Seriously, though, Miss Harlot, how on earth you can knit an entire sock (knitting the heel 18 times, no less), in a day is no less than the most amazing feat for feet (or for knitting hands, for that matter) of which I have ever heard.
Ditto here on the no-wrap approach.
I too am awed by the knitting speed of Stephanie.
That’s a darn fine pair of socks ya got there, lady! Worthy of Housework Avoidance, indeed 🙂 Love the contrasting heels. Tres chic!
Definitely a cool short row heel, and Rana is quite right to note that the pointiness of the heel DOES go away. I think that this kind of heel works for some feet and not for others. I like a snug instep and keeping the colors going (or stripes or jacquard or whatever) so it works for me. Also I am almost always knitting from the toe up to use up all the possible yarn. For obvious reasons. Many thanks for the compliments on the yarn (I see a spinning error from here!), but I am definitely NOT going into business with it; it would be very much like turning knitting complicated sweaters for fun and family, where neither expense nor time matters in the slightest, into a job I could not put down when work got equally complex and demanding. As it does all too frequently, alas!
that yarn – and those socks – are absolutely stunning. wow. i’ve never knit a sock in my life, so i don’t know if you did the short heel correctly or not, but it looks fabulous. 🙂
condolences on the hampster. those little things go so fast…
I read through all the comments to see if anyone else picked up on “grok.” I hadn’t thought of/heard that in years and years…
I thought your use of “grok” was singularly apt, and I, too, wondered how many of your Devoted Followers would “grok” it. It brought back a laugh at the memory of a friend’s Mom who made her remove an “I grok” bumper sticker from her beater ol’ car because her Mom was afraid it meant something DIRTY. Heaven forfend!
Kendra
I have yet to complete a short row heel that I liked. The PGR technique has been highly recommended and I have the book, because I can’t help myself, so I’m going to try that one soon. But, if I understand correctly, doing the decrease at the end of the row might really be the solution for me. I can’t abide the lacy look I usually get.
And I’m amazed as ever at how fast you can turn out such beauties.
Of course you had to pick option 3! It provides a. the satisfaction of doing it yourself b. an excuse to drink wine c. a darn good reason not to do housework d. an excuse to drink wine. Now you do “grok” it, and the wine helped…this is the new millenium, water just don’t cut it!
Sorry to hear about the hamster…that’s always so tough. Funerals always help the kids through stuff like that. When our dog died when the kids were small, we planted flowers on his grave, and they said he’d turned into the flowers and they felt better.
Love the socks, and love the yarn. Good thing you don’t sell it, Laurie. My husband would have to live on beans forever cause I’d spend the grocery money on the yarn.
Barb Brown
Those are the coolest socks I’ve ever seen. Bar none.
All right, fess up… what yarn did you make these out of?? I have to get some! And did you really get them done in one day? I envy you… *sigh*
Re June 2/04 Short row socks.
With all due respect (and how much respect is due a harlot, after all?), who’s looking at the heels? Those are some spectrally spectacular socks!