sock innovations

I took a one day sock class from Cat Bordhi. The class was based on her book with the odd title:

Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters: Book Two in the New Pathways for Sock Knitters Series

a bit of a mouthful if I do say.

But I digress. The purpose of the class was to expose a new way of addressing the creation of knitted socks. Cat Bordhi is famous for being one of those people who sees things differently and this was no different. It was, in a single word, GREAT!

These are the first pair of socks I made using her new approach. You mark where the leg is going to come in based on your personal (cardboard) footprint and then knit all the way to the end of the foot without doing anything else but some decreases. Then, without binding off the heel, you go back to the "leg place", insert your needles back in where you previously put a lifeline thread and ........

CUT A HOLE!

Sort of like afterthought pockets as designed by Elizabeth Zimmerman but the edges are improved. Then you knit the leg and once you can actually try on the sock you can knit the heels closed. I did one sock to the point where I inserted the lifelines in the one day class.

I then finished the heel part and the cutting part and added the pattern for the leg part and bound them off. The best news is that they fit PERFECTLY and the heels feel really good. It was quite exciting in my sock life. Really !

 I had already completed this purpleish sock with my standard til now eye of partridge heel and toe and was laboring on through second sock syndrome. Instead -- consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds -- I took the second sock (I had already done the toe and was partway up the foot) and gave it the Bordhi treatment. I used my cardboard foot pattern, inserted the lifelines at the place I determined they should be and continued knitting to the heel without actually closing the heel up.

This is what the heel looks like right now

And this is what the two socks look like right now from the front.  You can't even see where I picked up the stitches and cut the hole.  I will post it again when it is done, but having tried it on I can say that the new heel fits me better than the heel on Sock Number 1 of this pattern.

I think I can adapt this to almost any toe up sock.   Exciting!

(I know, I know, I might need to get a life here but it still is exciting.)