Dragon Socks

I really like the way the pattern stands out so clearly when it's on the foot. It's really much better than when it's off. I stuck an eye-of-partridge heel flap along with a Dutch heel on these babies. They would have been a perfect, fast knit except that I forgot 2 fundamental elements of sock knitting.

1) Make sure your heel flap uses 1/2 of your stitches. This one was closer to 1/3 of the total stitches. No wonder the gusset decreases went by so quickly!

2) Measure the length of your foot! I cranked this one out and tried it on and it was a good inch too short. Thankfully, I have no fear of dropping stitches, so I just cut off the heel (with one snip and then unravelling the yarn, of course -- I'm not completely insane!), knit another inch or so and kitchenered the whole thing together. Again, the difference between the heel-flap stitches and the instep stitches came back to haunt me when I did the toe! In this process, make sure you pick up all of the stitches from your needles. I didn't, and have a slip-stitch column in the middle of my foot where I tried to fix my work. Usually I can pick up stitches without a problem, but something happened. I like the way it works, so it's not bothering me too much. I'll call it a design element.

I don't mind all of these things because this was a pair of socks. If it were a sweater -- then yes, I'd probably go back and refine my work. A lace shawl, definitely. Socks are meant to be worn, and worn well! No one will be looking THAT closely at the bottom of my foot. Nobody that doesn't knit, at least....

On another front, Stacee gave me the You Make My Day Award! Thanks so much!

I'm supposed to pass the award on, but I have 72 feeds currently in bloglines. I'd hate to leave anyone out, and there are so many blogs I enjoy! I don't think I could do them justice by choosing between them, and I'm not even going to try.

I'm off to catch up on the breaking news -- I'm quickly becoming a political junkie this election season!