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02/21/2006

The foot (dum dum dum)

I am not sure if my title relays the kind of doom I feel about the foot of my stockings.  Regardless, I am feeling it.  I have finished one stocking (and am about half way through my second) but I am thinking about fixing the first which will make my Olympic Knitting that much more impossible.  There are several things that are bugging me about it:

  1. The stitches are not even.  I don't know if that is a fair isle thing or a two handed knitting thing or a "it is not blocked yet" thing.  But it bugs me because...well, it is not perfect.
  2. The ankle/lower calf portion is a little big.  Darn my skinny ankles (okay, I don't really mean that because I am actually vain about the parts of me that are delicate and petite—I am allowed because I had to endure people calling me big when I was an impressionable teenager just because I was 5'10 living in Hawaii.)  But still, I think I should have switched to 2's for the lower calf and ankle portion to make it more form fitting.  The bagginess is really only apparent after I have been wearing the socks for a minute but do I really want to be constantly pulling the stockings up to give it a more form fitting look?
  3. I messed up the pattern...slightly, but still messed up.  Stupidly, I rearranged some of the stitches on the needles earlier after a dropped stitch.  When I got to the heel flap I forgot about this and did the heel flap with the wrong stitches (about 2 stitches off from the pattern.)  These pictures are a little old since I have now finished but they help demonstrate:

Right side of foot:

medium_norwegian_foot_right.jpg

Left side of foot:

medium_norwegian_foot_left.jpg

You see?  See how the right side has 3 lines bordering the instep pattern and the left has one?  It is all wrong!  I know it might not be a big deal to some people but it drives me crazy!  I continued on and finished the stocking thinking I would get over it but upon further reflection (and if my second sock turns out much better) then I am going to frog the first to the decreases and do it over.  Now the question remains...can I finish the perfected stockings before the games are up? 

17:46 Posted in Norwegian Stockings | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this | Tags: Knitting (ENGLISH)

Comments

i just admire your stamina. they look wonderful to me.

Posted by: cassi | 02/22/2006

For what it's worth, I think they still look great, even with that little pattern mess-up. The colors are just lovely. I'm also having issues as I tackle my own pair, also in Baby Ull. I ended up going down a needle size for the ankles because, as with yours, they were too loose, but now I'm torn as to whether or not to go back up for the foot! How many stitches did you cast on for these, by the way? I started out with 110, because I have big ol' calves, but I still wonder if that's too much.

Posted by: Kerry | 02/24/2006

Are you using Baby Ull for these? I had a hard time decided how many stitches to cast on, since the gauge is different from the Heilo. This weekend I started a new stocking, I cast on 100 and decreased down to 96 to get the right number of stitches for the leg motif. It's definitely more form-fitting, but the pattern doesn't seem too stretched out like I was worrying it would. I think now once I hit the ankles they should be the right size. And the CC-under-MC technique is a definite hit...my tension overall looks MUCH better. I'll keep an eye on your blog to see how yours go--and someday I'll post pictures of mine on my blog! Good luck!

Posted by: Kerry | 02/27/2006