Year of Projects 3: Mince Pie Mayhem 01

SOCKTOPUS: Totally Vanilla • Kandahar • V Junkie • Kwalia • Farmer McGregor • Shur'tugal • 2luvcrew • Vorticity • Rumpled! • Crowley • Om Shanti • Mince Pie Mayhem • Hundred Acre Wood • De Stijl • Fiori di Zucca • Caretta Caretta • Spring Shoots

It's a picture heavy post today - sorry if it takes a while to load. First things first: last week I was just short of the toe on the second of my 2luvcrew socks. Six weeks after casting on, they're finally done. To be fair, they sat unloved for several of those weeks, so you shouldn't conclude the pattern is that labour intensive.

I'll admit that I like these socks better than I thought I would. Lace socks aren't really my thing, and a patterned toe? Well that just seems wrong to me. And then there's all that knitting through the back loops ... grrrrr. All that being said, the finished socks were worth the effort. I haven't actually worn them in shoes or boots yet. It's been cold, wet and icy for the last several days, so lace socks haven't held much appeal.

With the pink socks off the needles it was time to cast on Mince Pie Mayhem socks. I'm knitting the medium size on 2.25 mm needles. With 80 sts I'd have guessed that the size would be largish, but all these criss-crossing stitches have really condensed the fabric. If you're considering this pattern, don't go small!

The construction of this sock is very interesting. Rather than a heel flap and gusset, the heel continues in pattern while stitches are picked up between the heel and the instep to form an expansion area - a technique that originated with Cat Bordhi, I think. As written the pattern allowed for 11 sts added in each expansion area. Some Ravelers noted that the heel was too shallow, and since I generally lengthen heel flaps anyway, I decided to add another chart repeat to the heel to increase 15 sts instead. As a result, my heel is almost 3/4" deeper and the circumference around the heel and instep has been increased almost an inch and a half. It's still snug, so this was a good call.

Working a heel this way keeps you working entirely in the round except for the actual heel turn. And you don't need to pick up any stitches so there are no holes. I'm fascinated by this technique and am considering some vanilla socks using this technique. The expansion area would totally disappear into the fabric, wouldn't it?

It's also been a good pattern for practising cabling without a cable needle. The mind boggles at how long the knitting of this sock would take if you were crossing the stitches using a cable needle. Just as well it's going quickly - I need to get these done by the end of the week.

Looks like I'll have plenty of knitting time today; we're just emerging from an ice storm. Everything has a coating of ice. Gavin spent 45 minutes this morning chipping the ice off the windshield to drive home from work, but reports that the roads are brutal. Lots of trees and tree limbs are down. Much of the city has power outages. More than 250,000 households have been told that power might not be restored for 72 hours or more. I guess that'd put a stop to Christmas baking. My neighbourhood has power, so we're lucky, but I don't plan to venture far from home today.