Eastburn Adventures

I finally finished the heels on the Earl Grey socks - and I figured out what I was doing wrong picking up the wraps. I've used a compilation of tutorials to learn how to do the short-row heel, and Wendy's pattern, Silver's class, and Misocrafty's tutorials are my go-to guides.

Wondering how to get a perfect-sized heel that will work for most people? I figured out from Wendy's pattern that 14 is the magic number. You want 14 stitches in the middle of the heel, so in my case where I had a total of 72 stitches for the sock, or 36 in both the front and the back, I knit my short-rows so that I had 11 stitches wrapped on both sides of the heel - 11 + 14 + 11 = 36. So take 1/2 of your total stitches, subtract 14, divide that result by 2, and that's how many wrapped stitches you want on each side.

Need to know how to wrap your stitches? Silver's got great examples on her site, but I've made so many Lizard Ridge squares now that I'm wrapping my stitches as set forth in that pattern, rather than following Silver's exactly.

How to pick up stitches? Misocrafty's got it down - and with this being my 3rd pair of socks using this technique, I think I do, too. My other pairs looked slightly different on each side of the heel, and I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I was picking up the wraps on the front side of my work regardless of whether or not I was on a knit or purl row. The key is to pick up the wraps on the purl rows from the back of your work, not the front. Voila! Identical!

We had a lovely, if hectic Christmas. We had Christmas Eve with my family from about 4:00 - 6:30 p.m., then had to drive an hour to Lebanon to spend the remainder of the evening with Robert's family, which lasted longer than anticipated and we didn't leave to drive back home until after midnight. Fortunately, no one was on the road at that time. We tried to sleep in on Christmas morning, but a well-wishing family member woke us with a "Merry Christmas" phone call at 8:30 a.m. We got up and had our own Christmas time, and Robert again spoiled me with knitterly goodness, primarily in the form of books. He bought me The Knitter's Stash, Knitting on the Road, Folk Socks, The Compendium of Finishing Techniques, and Wendy Knits (which I'm hoping to get Wendy to autograph when I take her class at The Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling! Oh yeah, Zarah and I both got in - we're so psyched about going and taking Wendy's and Cookie A's classes, as well as visiting The Loopy Room and meeting the famous Sheri!) Robert also got me the Namaste Jetsetter bag. Then we had a Christmas lunch at my sister's house, and finally got to come home and just veg out. Unfortunately, our vacation time was ending so it was back to work on Wednesday!

Today we drove to Wyandotte, Oklahoma to have Christmas with Robert's father. I'm coming down with a horrible cold, so I didn't feel like knitting too much in the car. I'm still hoping to get his socks finished by year end, and I'm working on my knitting plan for 2008.

Last, but not least, here's wishing a very happy birthday today to my good friend Kate! (Shhh, it's one of those milestone birthdays!)