Toes

What little knitting I've done this week has been all about the toes. To begin with, I've come to the sad realization that I just don't like the fit of my Just Start Knitting toe: it's too tight across the front, and it twists out of shape. So I decided to experiment with anatomical correctness.

Cool, huh? It begins like the "Just Start Knitting" sock, but after an inch I stop increasing on one side. The toe section is longer, and seems to fit much, much better. And I'm loving this yarn -- half wool, and half mohair, silk, and nylon. I bought it from the Legendary Pat at the spring stash orgy.


My other toe problem concerned the LibraryThing socks. Not only were the toes uncomfortably tight, I ran out of yarn six rounds before the end. I tried to find someone with a few yards of this yarn in their stash, but the Zombie's was too orange, and Brow and SB are eloping this week. Nothing left to do but amputate, scavenge the toe yarn to finish the cuff, and make new toes.

This one skein of Cider Moon "Johnny Cash" black may be the most useful yarn I've ever bought. Toes aren't anatomical, but they do fit better than the original ones do.

Is this what I think it is?

A patent for knitted socks that fit? WTF?

I've become dissatisfied with my sock toes. A while back, Stephen mentioned anatomically-correct toes. I was searching for instructions, and ran across this.

Updates, mostly about socks

Apparently, I only have so much attention to spread around. And if I post about my knitting in Ravelry and my books in LibraryThing, then clearly I have nothing to say here. So here's a sock knitting round up.

1. Speaking of LibraryThing, I met Tim Spalding the creator last week at a conference. We drank good beer and talked about Russian formalism, name authority records, gender, and places to eat in Maine. I envy his MacBook. I've decided to make a habit of knitting socks for cool guest speakers at library conferences, so here are Tim's LibraryThing socks. It doesn't show up very well, but I've put the letters L & T on the cuff in purl stitches.

2. No word yet on my appeal for the TOE UP license plate.

3. I finally finished the Deathly Hallows socks that I started back in July. The skull on the heel is adapted from Lindsay Henrick's bag, and made with Knitivity's GlowKnits: my glow-in-the-Dark Mark. I hate intarsia and it was a pain, but the socks are awesome, right?

4. I'm in the middle of teaching another sock class, the second in as many months. The classes are getting bigger: 5 people in September's class, 6 in October's. I'm barely handling it. I like assisting people up the learning curve of short-row heels on Magic Loop, but it can be a struggle.

5. I'm experimenting with gussets. You can see I added some gusset-y increases to the LibraryThing sock above. Cat Bordhi's discovery that gusset stitches don't have to be where we've always put them intrigues me, even if most of her New Pathways don't. So I thought I'd try a Spiraling Coriolis but with a different heel. I originally gave the Andersson Heel a try, but it came out too short. Mel's Widdershins is better.

I guess Sock Wars II is underway. I didn't enlist this year. But I happen to have some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino around, so I might give the sock a try.