Socks being difficult

Since I am still in the thinking process on Picovoli, I have been working on socks and since the socks have been for people that I have a foot size for, I have been doing a gusseted heel. In both cases I am working the heel using a slip stitch.

On the gray sock done of Cascade Fixation, the slip stitches were made only on the knit side of the flap, and form an nice little ribbed kind of look, but the inside is perfectly smooth. On the rich colours of the Fabel sock, I did the slipped stitches on both the knit and purl side. This double slipping is creating a very nice fabric. Thick and cushy but the fabric wants to narrow up. I was prepared for a shortening of fabric, but not for the narrowing, but when you think it through, yeah, it is going to do this. In essence the fabric is forming two layers with half the stitches on each layer. It has to be half the width. It is shorter too, but not by that much. I am going to continue onward, to see what happens, as I work the gusset stitches. Will the fabric be OK, will it do what it all is supposed to do? Will they fit? Big Drama.

Anyway it may be smooth sailing and it may not. I am ever prepared for failure. Failure means I am learning why no one does it with the double slip stitch or will confirm that this is a good way to do it.

The scarf continues apace. This pattern simply flows off my needles. It is rhythm, it is music. When I am at the end of a row, I can't wait for the next row. When I am working the purl side I am convinced that the purl rows are my favourite part. When I am on pattern row one, I can't think of rhythm that flows better, till I am on pattern row 2 when I think it is the best row ever. You always know when a project is right when all these things are aligning, unfolding as they should.

I'm already planning to use this lace pattern again. Way back, at the start of my knitting, I was working on something with a gorgeous charcoal lace weight Centolavaggi yarn, and I gave that up, because I was just so unready for the challenge of lace, and I was not at all ready to work without a pattern. I'm a lot more confident now. My work at Christmas gave me an inkling of how to get past one of the major obstacles the project faced, and the lace class and all I have done since has given me the confidence to believe that I can make the yarn speak for me.

Today, I go on my quest of good needles. I'm not going to get anything else. yeah right. Sure I can walk out of the yarn store without yarn. Yeah. Sure.