Suggestions, anyone?

As much as possible, I try not to whine on this blog. And when I wrote last week about having to rip back a sock, I didn’t think I was whining. After all, I didn’t mind ripping, and I did look forward to getting the leg the right length. Really, I was laughing at myself. What idiot knits a sock leg too long because she’s too enamored of the stitch pattern to stop and measure the darn thing?

So I was kind of tickled by all the suggestions I received for avoiding the same fate in the future. By far, my favorite was the idea of tattooing a ruler onto my forearm so I’d always have an easy way to measure my knitting. It’s tempting… but no. 🙂

Ripping back and reknitting the cuff—now that’s something I’ve done before, on sweaters if not socks. It wouldn’t have worked in this case, though. The patterning on the cuff flows into the leg, and it just wouldn’t work to reknit the cuff in the other direction. Ditto reknitting the cuff from top down, and grafting it onto a shorter leg; the patterning wouldn’t have matched up right. (Sorry, no photos; it’s a stealth project. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

But here’s the suggestion that I can’t get out of my head: knit socks from the toe up.

Sure, I can do that. I’ve designed a few toe-up socks. I know how to knit a variety of heels for toe-up socks. So why not knit more toe-up socks?

Most of the time, I knit socks from the cuff down because I really like plain vanilla flap-and-gusset heels. I can bang ’em out with my eyes closed, and know they’ll fit.

To get that same fit from the toe up, I’d have to knit a “gusset-and-flap” heel. You know, where you work the gusset increases first, then work a heel turn, then work decreases at the end of each row of the “flap” (which doesn’t actually flap, but it’s still called a flap anyway).

I’m never quite sure, though, where to begin the gusset increases. Most toe-up sock patterns with gusset-and-flap heels say something like, “Work even until foot measures x" less than desired length,” but as far as I can tell, x is just pulled out of thin air. In New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Cat Bordhi explains how to calculate foot length to start of gussets from stitch count and row gauge, but it’s all a little fussy for my tastes.

What I’d like is a nice, simple, trustworthy rule of thumb, like the ones cuff-down sock knitters have for determining heel flap length. Rules like “Knit the flap until it’s as tall as it is wide,” or “until it reaches from ankle bone to floor.” That sort of thing.

Suggestions, anyone?

Until further notice, I’m going to toy around with this rule of thumb: “Work even until foot extends to 1" before footpit.” (The oh-so-useful term “footpit,” by the way, is courtesy of Wendy Johnson. I think I found it first in her book Socks from the Toe Up. Basically, it’s the point where your foot meets your ankle, when you bend your foot up.) That seems to be the point where my gusset decreases end for cuff-down socks. It would seem to be a reasonable place to start the gussets for toe-up socks, no?

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