A Tale of Two Toes

When last we met, I was working away on a toe-up sock in Sassy Stripe and all seemed to be going well. Then I tried it on - oh, boy! I have a very narrow foot (Double A with a 4A heel) and the pattern I was sort of following called for increasing every other row from the toe to the number of stitches for the instep. When I tried the sock on, there were little "ears" sticking out on either side until it started fitting well at the ball of the foot. In addition, I wasn't particularly pleased with how stiff the knit fabric was on size 1 needles or with how working with the needles hurt my hands. Forward to one of those "light bulb" moments: I needed a toe that increased more gradually! The 45° toe formed by the every other row increases left over 2" between the end of the increases and where my foot widened enough to fill the toe. Not wanting to burn my bridges (as the old saying goes) before I knew my idea would work, I started with the second skein of yarn. I wanted the socks to match, so I had to wind off quite a bit before I reached the same point where the other skein had started in the color sequence, but I cast on 10 stitches instead of 14, increased every other row three times and then every third row until I reached 68 stitches. I also switched up to size 2 needles which don't hurt my hands as much and produce a softer fabric. Below you can see the difference between the two toes. The one on the right fits perfectly. Now it's on to the heel wherein lies my next challenge.



When I wasn't working on the socks, or washcloths for Cloths for Crisis, or 8" afghan squares that will go to make a blanket for a young woman with cancer in Virginia, I kept crocheting on the red rag-tag afghan and finished it Thursday night.



Last night I started another rag-tag that will have shades of green on the ends.