Palm Thoughts and Afterthoughts

Wow! I had no idea there were so many good ideas out there for programs. I'm going to have to think hard about what the best course of action is. I'll only have about a month to work on it, so at least for my class I need to keep it in the "compact and achievable" range. Right now, I am leaning towards something that would help keep track of needles and projects, because this is a constant problem for me. But I think I am going to have to spend some time talking to the instructors about what is reasonable to think I can accomplish. I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew sometimes...

I'll definitely be posting here as I progress, though.

It was definitely a good weekend for me. My programming homework didn't turn out to be too terrible this week and I got it finished Friday night, which meant I had most of the weekend to play around with my needles. Sock maniac that I am these days, I finished up the first of my Meilenweit Cotton Multi Jacquard socks.

Sock with Afterthought Heel in Meilenweit Cotton Multi Jacquard #405

I just have to sing the praises of this sock yarn! I absolutely adore the stuff. It's a 45% cotton, 42% wool, 13% poly blend. It doesn't have a lot of elasticity as you knit with it, but it makes a wonderful soft fabric with a reasonable amount of elasticity when it is knit up. I also like the fact that it has a very cool to the touch feel. Will there be more of this stuff in my future? You betcha! In fact, I've already put in a little order with my favorite enablers for Meilenweit Cotton Fantasy.

In addition to a new favorite cotton blend sock yarn, I also now have a new favorite sock heel. Take a look at this:

Afterthought Heel with 6 Point Decreases

Instead of decreasing in the same way as I normally decrease for the toes, I followind Dawn Brocco's instructions for a 6 decrease point heel. It makes for a much more heel-shaped heel and there is no Kitchenering at the end.

You start things off just the way you would for a standard afterthought heel, by picking up stitches on either side of your waste-yarn marked area. Then you knit the first round, picking up as many stitches as you think necessary in the gap area. Then you count stitches and divide by 6. The only difficult part is deciding whether you are going to increase or decrease on the next round so that you can get to a number evenly divisible by 6. I increased to 72 stitches and then followed her instructions to set up a decrease at six evenly spaced points along the heel.

The result is a heel that really fit the outline of my heel. I was so excited about it I asked my husband to try the socks on, too, and they were perfect for him, as well (our feet aren't so different, and I like my socks loose, so this isn't as strange as it sounds) -- in fact, if the socks hadn't had so many colors in them, I think he would have decided that he wasn't going to give this one back!

Needless to say, I cast on the second one almost immediately after finishing the heel on Saturday morning. I'm about 3" done on the cuff of the second sock. I would have gotten a little farther along, except that I decided that I needed to start yet another pair of socks, which I'll show off when I get them a little farther along.

Not sure why I am so out of control with the sock thing right now. I have a number of big projects that I really want to work on. I think it might be due to the fact that I don't have a lot of time to knit right now, and I can see progress on a sock even when I am only knitting in short bursts, whereas with my Onde pullover 30 minutes of knitting hardly seems to get me anywhere. That, and my socks are portable enough to go to class with me. Heh. I wonder if my professor will be surprised when I tell her I want to do a knitting application for the Palm...