"Red Socks at night,

Knitter's delight.
Red socks in the morning,
Warm feet all day."


And you can warm your hands at them, too. I think it works. Thank you, Miriam, for clarifying the toe-up heelflap sock. These socks fit. They fit like hand-knit socks. I have to tug at them a bit to get my heel past the ankle, but as my foot slides home the ankle slips into place and it's just... (almost) perfect. The foot is fractionally too big (I should have started the gusset about 2 rows/5mm earlier), but I'm not worried about it as the fit will change once they're washed. The fit across my instep seems to be perfection. No sense of constriction at all. If you ever have been unsatisfied with the fit of a sock, this is the way to go, it really is. I'm a convert. I loved the look of the Porsche short-row heel with its clean, elegant sophisticated line. By comparison heelflaps look clunky, old-fashioned... a bit like the umpteenth-hand VW Variant estate that was our first car in the UK. We handpainted ours fire-engine red. But (how far can I take the analogy?) like the Variant, the heelflap meets all my? our? needs. Reliable, hard-wearing, easily repaired, you can sleep in it when the tent blows out in a Welsh hurricane. Too far. Just try the heelflap, people.
The heelflap is a slip-stitch rib. And see all the cables? I love cables. That is one very happy foot. There's another one just out of view. Now I've got three pairs of socks for me and I still wear them reluctantly for fear I'll wear them out. Yes, the back of my closet is full of clothes I bought because I loved them and never wear because if I wear them I won't have them to love anymore. I must grow out of that attitude, as I've grown out of (ha) so many of the clothes...

Next on the sockneedles: socktoken socks for one of my sister's friends. Time to share the pleasure by knitting for someone else. I have the yarn already. I have lots of sockyarn. I shudder to think how much I've acquired, and how quickly. About 6 months-worth if I knit nothing but socks. And yet every time I read a knitblogger's description of some other sockyarn I want some of that, too. There I am, clicking for larger images, exclaiming over the colours, wondering what it feels like. Looking to see if they ship to the UK (other than Piece of Beauty, which is in the UK. Hurrah!). I didn't think I had an addictive personality, but perhaps it's just very, very particular. At least sock yarn isn't fattening. Gah. I could be imagining what it would taste like, too.

[calendar pages blowing in the winds of time]

Having just finished a really frustrating hour-long conversation about a project (they hire me as a specialist so WHY won't they listen to what I say?) I'm going to blow caution and the rest of the afternoon finishing this entry and whatever else suits me. Baking bread that's already over-risen thanks to that, that... that CLIENT and trying to relax. Holding the phone to my ear for over an hour of increasing tension levels makes the muscles of my left arm lock into knots. Why do I never remember I bought a headset to prevent that?

Anyway, here's part of a socktoken and the start of a socktoken sock in Lorna's Laces Bittersweet. Peculiar yarn, feels like cotton after the Bearfoot and I find it a bit splitty, too. I'm not at all certain I like it, I hope there's not masses of it lurking in the stash.

I did a little maths from my ongoing circular gauge swatch and worked out that a 66st sock would be about right for her foot, allowing for a little stretch. Cast on 18st using figure-8, blithely started increasing the toe, and realised I had almost no idea of what I was going to do with this sock, how I was going to pattern it. Now, this is a major milestone in my knitting life: never before have I just cast on and started anything without a plan of attack. I must really be comfortable with sockknitting :-) Which leaves me thinking about a simple rib, something with some 'give' to allow for variation in foot/ankle size, perhaps with a couple of details for pretty. Cables? An inset simple lace pattern? I need to chart some thoughts, which means I need some knitters' graph paper, which means a visit here, where someone has kindly written a program to produce exactly what I (or anyone else) needs.

Now I'm off to light the fire, put the bread in the oven, and knit until I've relaxed a bit. Question is, do I leave the next draft of that project until I'm less annoyed, or shall I get the annoyance over with tomorrow? Another conversation like that and I won't have to think about it: I'll bail.