Hold Fast! Tartan Socks

All this time I have been quietly knitting away on the Tartan Argyle Socks.

Aren't I sneaky?

Here I spring the first one on you, mostly formed.

What you are looking at is the leg and the top of the instep. So red cuff, leg, then the hourglass shaped portion is the gusset decreases. I'm heading for the toes.

I am not following the normal argyle flow of working the leg and instep, then heel flap, gusset decreases, sole until it matches the instep, and then toe in the round.

That method involved an awful lot of seam sewing.

Instead I'm giving Elizabeth Zimmerman's Moccasin Socks a whirl. She has you work leg and instep. But then you continue on through some funky toe shaping, pick up along the sides of the instep, and knit in the round down to the sole of the foot.

As far as I can tell, the only sewing should be the back of the leg and the bottom of the sole.

I have one more row in pattern to work, then I'm going to work even until the toe shaping. In the pattern she gives inches to aim for, but I'm like, "Uh, how do you know it will fit properly?" because the fabric has to stretch around your foot.

I'm probably a little fit shy because of the way the Pirate Arrgyles didn't look like they would fit until I was able to sew the side foot seams. After I sewed the seams they were able to stretch properly around my foot and give me a better idea of how the fabric was going to move around.

Well, thinking of the Pirate Arrgyles made me realize I had the perfect guides available. I'm using the same yarn and pattern, after all. So I counted the foot to toe rows on them and I'll work the Tartans to match.

Once again being too clever for my own good, I bet.

Cotton Baby Sweater and Hat Update
My Cousin X posted a picture of Baby M wearing the hat I made on Facebook. It's very exciting to see that it fits. She says they love the set. No picture of the sweater as it is still too big since I made the 18 month size and the baby is only around 4 weeks.

So nice when hand knit stuff is properly received.