Designing is lot like puzzle-solving. How do you get all the pieces—the yarns, the colors, the stitch patterns, the shaping details—to fit together into a cohesive, appealing whole? My favorite part of the puzzle is getting the stitch patterns to flow into each other, and into the space made available by the shaping. It usually involves visualizing (in my head, or on paper with charts), tinkering, and swatching. Sometimes a little serendipity gets thrown in too.
The Yachats socks have a nice bit of flow at the heel. Twisted rib on the back of the leg blends right into the slipped-stitch pattern on the heel flap. And then the stockinette on the gussets flows into the stockinette on the sole, as is typical for top-down socks with flap-and-gusset heels.
twisted rib flows top-down into the heel flap
Last week’s sample sock, though, was toe-up. Choosing a flap-and-gusset heel for it opened up a new and intriguing design puzzle—namely, what stitch pattern to use for the gussets and back-of-heel area?
One option was stockinette, as for a top-down sock. Dull, dull, dull! Besides, it wouldn’t flow into the Butterfly Lace pattern I wanted to use on the leg.
Another was Butterfly Lace… but lace at the back of the heel wouldn’t make for a long-wearing sock. And gusset decreases in lace? Unnecessarily fiddly.
So, with Yachats still fresh in my mind, I went with twisted rib.
slipped-stitch ridges flow toe-up into twisted rib
The ridges of the slipped-stitch heel flap (here, on the bottom of the sock) flow through the heel turn, and into the twisted rib. Serendipity bonus: the rib then flows reasonably well into Butterfly Lace on the leg.
Overall, I like the effect. But I imagine changes to the lace that would make it better, that would increase the amount of flow between the parts of the design. And you know I’m all about the flow.
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