Afterthought heel

So, how do you like the new blog look? Been tinkering with Bloggers beta designer templates all day - lost a good few hours somewhere:-) I think it may need some more tweeking but I like the change. One thing I do like though is how this template highlights the page tabs at the top of the page - they were getting kind of lost before. But now they are more prominant, I'll have to revamp them too!

It's been a bitty week, trying to get some gardening done when the sun decides to come out, trying to spin but not with as much success as I'd like:-) and trying to make a dent in some of these outstanding WIP's that have kind of been hibernating - although not intentionally. Yes, there is an intentional pile:-)

Since I couldn't seem to find my spinning mojo, I looked out these lovely unfinished socks - Little Minx. Last time we saw these, I had decided to use an afterthought heel to keep the colour continuity with the Almond Zauberball bands and all I needed to do was finish the second sock to the top. A good few tv watching hours later and the sock length was done. Then I undid the scrap yarn holding the heel stitches and picked up my live sts onto two circular needles following Knitting up a Storm's tutorial. This method is so easy and very quick to do. It's just like decreasing a sock toe with a simple st st graft at the end. And they seem to make a well fitting heel too!

With the first sock I didn't colour match as exactly as I would have liked - you can see a little darker shading going on there - damn! It looked right at the time too so with the second sock I was more careful and it looks a lot better. These are knitted up bigger than my sock blockers so I'll need to get some modelled shots to do them justice and show off the pattern and the stripes - which is more pronounced that it looked when on the needles but it's all cool:-)

The weather is meant to be rainy and dull over the weekend, so that will mean no gardening time. Well, it gives me a chance to get the last of the DIY done and possibly look out some more hibernating knitting projects as well - unless I succumb to the african flower crochet bug that is going around here, here and here:-)) There is even a Flickr group where you can get the pattern and see other lovely variations. I may just have a little play with colours this weekend and see.... famous last words! But I'll just be glad to get some creative mojo going again so I can post a bit more often!!

See you all soon!

Little minx update

I've been knitting away at my Little Minx socks all week and thought it was about time to show you an update. The last time I mentioned these, I was unhappy with my choice of yarn and decided to use more subtle colour tones in the Almond zauberball. And I am so happy with the difference! The more solid bands of colour really let the twisted stitches show off don't you think?

You can see how the zauberball colour gradations are beginning to move across the sock surface as we get to the heel. I think this will still have a lot of tonal contrast going on overall - hopefully it won't have too definite blocks of colour.

This pattern is a toe-up , short row heel sock design with good links to tutorials if you need some visual help. This one is a simple W&T heel (wrap and turn) and all went nice and smoothly. This yarn is a bit splitty, especially picking up all the wraps so I tried hard to get a clean finish. Unfortunately, by the time I had finished knitting the heel insert, the colourway had changed significantly from reds to a more dominant brown shade. You can see the sharp line on the patterned section a few rows from the top. Sigh! After all the smooth subtle shading, it just seemed too obvious and very annoying.

I went away and tried to live with it for a bit but to no avail. So I decided to rip it back and try out an idea I had from experiencing this problem before. If I knitted an Afterthought heel, the tones in the yarn wouldn't be disrupted and I would have a lovely subtle sock again.

The afterthought heel is basically a knitted tube with only the toe shaped as you go. After you finish the sock, you add the heel section. You can do this two ways: cut a row of knitting on the st stitch side and pick up the stitches top and bottom of that cut row on two dpns/circular needles (favoured by Elizabeth Zimmermann), or you can add a row of waste yarn as you are knitting the tube, just where you want the heel to be placed, then after you finish the sock, unpick the waste yarn and place top stitches on one needle and the bottom stitches on another and decrease just like a toe and graft the ends together. It's quite hard to explain without how-to visuals and I found links to both versions if you want to try:

 Yarn Harlots afterthought heel using Elizabeth Zimmermanns cut version.

Knitting up a storms's version using the waste yarn technique.

I'm playing it cautious and avoiding cutting for now:-) As you can see, I have used some ochre waste yarn on the back of my sock. What is also really good about this technique is that if the heel happens to wear out, you can just unravel it back to the tube and reknit the heel with fresh yarn - cool, huh?

So progress so far? I have zoomed on from the afterthought line and have knitted about another inch or two since I took this picture. Hopefully with a few hours of knitting tonight, I will get this sock finished and the second one up and running. Oh, the reason the sock is folded in half is that as a rule of thumb without trying the sock on, the leg height is usually the same as the length of the sole. Once I get near the end, I try it on and see if I like the height and either start the rib or knit a bit more to suit:-)

So hopefully I shall be able to show you at least one finished sock soon:-) And if you fancy knitting this pattern up yourself, Karen has just released this on Ravelry here and even better, it's free! It's a lovely twisted rib pattern and a very good introduction to sock knitting and easy cabling. It doesn't take long to get into the pattern and before long, you have a complex and gorgeous sock emerging:-) Thanks Karen, for a very enjoyable knit!