Sock it to me!

After several false starts on the toe, I finally finished the cursed socks! More photos on Flickr. I wanted to post right away, so I didn't sweat over the photo shoot. As you can see, I didn't even get off the couch.

I learned several things from these socks....

1. I need to find a better cast-on for a top down sock. This one is ok, but on is ever so slightly tighter than the other. It's not noticable when they're on, I noticed it as I was stretching them side by side. Not a big deal.

2. On my next set of socks, I'll decrease maybe 2 more rounds in the gussett. I have really high insteps and the socks should have a smaller/tighter instep.

3. I'm going to knit from the toe up the next time. I had way too much yarn left over. Left over yarn is not a bad thing (maybe fingerless wrist warmers?) but I would have made the socks just a wee bit longer.

4. As for the toe...I did a search on the internet and found the chimney toe method by Lucy Neatby. It's about the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. Basically, when you get to the end of the sock you switch to a contrasting yarn and knit about 8 rounds with no decreases, and then cast off. Shut up, it really looks like a chimney! Then you poke the chimney inside the sock and line up the sock stitches and graft them together. Once the grafting is done, you ravel the chimney and voila, a perfect toe! Check out her site, she has tons of great ideas.

I was so pleased with the toe on the second sock that I frogged the toe on the first sock and reknit and grafted with the chimney method.

Thanks, Lucy! You've made me so very happy! On to project next....