Friday 16 May 2008

Short row heel class

The secret project is finished. Well close but no cigar, which is OK. I don't smoke. If I smoked, there probably would be a cigar because I have finished the knitting part. The parts all need to be grafted, and blocked.They don't look like much yet, but there is a world of meaning in these projects. I won't say much about that now, but these mark a journey that has come to mean a lot.

I sat in on a Sock class again last night. Very interesting. I can to make a short row heel. Not only that, in very little time, I can make 2.

The instructor showed us how to make a garter stitch heel from our Lucy Neatby patterns. Idiot simple. So simple I had to ask the instructor why everyone online talks about and obsesses over working the wraps . The instructor, being the very smart knitterly person she is, asked if the heels I saw online were stockinette heels. They were. She had me work up a stockinette version using the same technique.

Small holes appeared along the sides, which is of course, why everyone uses the obscenely complicated working the wraps process. There are other knitters out in the webby world we share, who say knitting through the back loop closes that little hole. I understand what 'hole' they are talking about now that I have created some.

It was enormously satisfying to learn this heel. More satisfying still, I understand what drove people to come up with the more complicated working the wraps short row heel. It was like an itch that needed scratching.

You can live without scratching these knitterly itches, but it feels so darn much better when you do.

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