Little Monsters Blog

These used to be called "the socks without a colorway name" or "the mountain colors socks" or "the two at a time socks"…but now they will be forever known as "those frigging toe-up socks."

My plan was to try everything and do it until I understood/was good at it, and then feel like a sock knitting supah-star. I could have this giant sock-knitting bag of knowledge/tricks, and pull it out whenever I wanted.

And then I met the short row heel.  

Let me illustrate my pain in photos.

First, it took me not one, but two books to understand the short row heel instructions in More Sensational Knitted Socks. Purl three stitches together through their back loops?!  Not so fun or so easy. I think I broke a tooth I was grinding them to tightly.

But I was game.  I’m a big SKS and MSKS fan, I was gonna truck on through. So I was doing it…and then I tried on the socks.

I am not an elf, so this was really not the look I was going for.  The pattern said that you should knit until you reached your desired foot length (which, in the diagram, shows your entire foot–so all the way up to the edge of your heel)…neglecting to mention that the heel would add at least another inch.

When I was done frogging, it was not a pretty sight. Especially for poor Nicolas, who has to untangle all of my yarn tangles. It’s just his job.

So I popped online and found a new method. One that didn’t involve breaking my fingers while trying to purl through three backloops at one time.  And the internet saved the day.

Heels turned. Back on track. Toes a little pointy, but I’m over it.

I can’t say I’ve mastered the short row heel, since even thinking about doing it Charlene’s way makes me want to tear out my eyeballs, and I wasn’t completely brilliant at the other method (the sides of the heel look differently from each other) BUT this little escapade has taught me an important lesson:

If you know how to do something well, you should probably leave well enough alone. (and if you don’t, expect to give yourself a few more prematurely grey hairs)

My first pair of toe-up, 2-at-a-time socks are slowly inching their way to the heel. Yarn is from Mountain Colors in mountain goat…the colorway is a mystery. The ball band said "indian corn," but it’s definitely not. The pattern is the garter stitch rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, and I’m following the toe-up directions from More Sensational Knitted Socks. The two-at-a-time directions I got from this tutorial.

I got off to a rocky start–had to frog the toe four times, and because the lady at the yarn shop had trouble with the ball winder, my center-pull ball was messed up…which ended in a horrific tangled mess that Nic spent an hour fixing for me. I’m finally through the crazy yarn-wrapped-around-Will’s-toys-to-prevent-it-from-getting-tangled mess part, so that feels very good.

I thought I would enjoy the two-at-a-time thing. But so far it’s not so good. You have to be very careful every time you turn the work at all not to tangle the two yarns…and, most importantly, progress is twice as slow (obviously). If I’d been knitting just one sock, I’d be at the heel by now and given a motivational push…instead, I’m just sluggin’ away at the foot.

For this yarn, though, toe-up, two-at-a-time was my best option. I’m nervous that I won’t have enough for the tall socks that I prefer, so this way I’m not in danger of running out of yarn. I can make them as tall as I have enough yarn for.