February sock club - Mark II

So after the fail that was Stalagmite, I set myself a much simpler challenge for the rest of February's sock club - to knit my first pair of toe-up socks.

I was given some lovely Opal Sport for Christmas and decided that some self-striping yarn such as this would be perfect to use for emergency birthday socks for Chris! I could just knit in simple stocking stitch and thus speed through. In the last week I have completed the first sock, but found the heel a bit slow as i'm so used to going the other way..

I followed the instructions here, with the numbers of stitches in the chart here, having cast on and increased to 72 stitches. I started with 8 stitches at the toe, but accidentally made the socks too long for Chris, so picked some of the toe out to compensate, then kitchener stitched it up again.

The one problem i've found so far with knitting toe-up is that when it comes to the point where you join the heel flap to the main body of the foot by slipping stitches from each section and then knitting them together, the join is quite loose, and not so neat as picking up stitches in the top-down version. I'll take some pictures to demonstrate once both socks are complete. I'll see if tightening my stitches up in that area of the sock makes a difference.. The problem is not major though, and I'm on target to have both socks done by the end of the month, so sock club was rescued!