I finally succeeded with my short row heel! After complaining about it all going wrong on Wednesday, I ripped it out and started again on Thursday morning and finally managed to get things going smoothly. It’s sort of weirdly pointy at the sides which I suspect is caused by leaving too many unwrapped stitches in the centre (I left 16) so next time I’ll have to experiment a little. I briefly considered ripping back again, but frankly I was so fed up with taking so long to get past the heel that I really couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps they’ll block out, and thankfully they pretty much disappear when the socks are on my feet so it shouldn’t annoy me too much.
I ended up following the directions on Minniemoll’s blog (how gorgeous are her socks in that post?!) where she suggested wrapping a second time on the return row so that you create another “shadow” just before you k3tog to incorporate the wrapped stitched back into the knitting (that’ll probably make no sense to me when I refer back to this post the next time I try shadow wraps! I loved the idea that pinkundine suggested on Twitter of knitting the shadow with the stitch before it instead of with it’s twinned stitch, but for some reason that method still gave me holes.
The only downside I see to this method is that it’s rather messy on the inside, but again this isn’t something that bothered me too much when I tried the sock on.
I’m now really keen to try the Priscilla Wild method of short rows, which Leah was sweet enough to point me towards on my last post. I googled it and it looks so simple, so I might have to give it a shot when I come to the toes…
I managed to knit a couple of blocks of stripes whilst I was at the cinema yesterday, so I’m pleased that I didn’t completely screw up the stripes in the dark! We went to see The Artist, and although I wasn’t really in the mood for it before I went in I ended up completely falling in love. It is the most beautiful film, and it’s worth every bit of praise that’s being heaped upon it. I definitely recommend it.
