Slightly A-Skew

I have returned to my long abandoned Skew sock.

You may remembered I started this sock back in July. It was quickly dropped because of the move. I just didn't have the time to focus on a complicated pattern.

Oh, sure it looks like it's all written out, but that is expecting you to make the size in the pattern. I'm downsizing it for my little feet, which is where things got complicated.

Getting through the foot was fine because it was pretty straight forward knitting. Things got tricky when I hit the gusset section and the increases that entailed.

There are numbers throughout this pattern. Numbers, numbers, numbers. And they all had to be recalculated for my measurements.

Now that things have settled down I was able to give it the attention it needed and I think I'm on track.

I'm on track for something, that's for sure. I've made it through the left heel.

I increased the gussets to 82 sts total compared to 102 and kept the heel stitchs (the ones that get Kitchenered) to 12 sts compared to 15. The 12 stitches were sort of arbitrarilly selected and maybe not the best choice. After working all the indicated decreases I had 11 sts between the heel marker and the end of round.

One stitch short of a heel. ha!

So I just took out the last decrease in order to get the correct number.

To graft it I logically went to the far end of the ball. However the free end was in a tan section and the heel stitches were purple. To compensate I reeled out the yarn until I reached a purple section. I figured I can stand to loose the length since I usually have plenty of yarn leftover.

It took me two tries to kitchener it shut.

Things basically went fine, but I thought it was a bit loose so I started working the slack out only to discover that I had split the yarn. I ended up having to pull out around five stitches so I could free the yarn, the go back forward. By then I decided the double pointed needles on the sides were just getting in my way. A quick transfer to some waste yarn took care of the problem. I think for the second sock I'll put the side stitches on waste yarn before I start Kitchenering.

I'm glad I fussed with it. I think it looks really nice now.

There are some decreases coming up for the leg. That will be easy because I'll be aiming for the same number of stitches I had in the foot.

The real question in all this is will the damn things fit?

I don't know if the circumfrance is good. I don't know if the foot is long enough. I don't know if the heel is deep enough.

And I won't know until I try it on, which I won't be able to do until I work a few more rows.

To hedge my bets I have lifelines in where I stopped working the foot even and then at the start of the heel shaping. I figure those are the two wildcard points that I might need to go back to if the fit isn't good.

In the mean time, it's after 9 pm. If I don't get off the computer I won't get any knitting done tonight.