As the Heel Turns

Finally! I have turned the heel on this second sock of the pair I started in June. JUNE!

I’m now working on the gusset, and then I’ll be in the home stretch. Socks are my carry-along project, and this pair is taking the longest of any pair I have ever made. But now I have a motive to get them finished; I need the yarn for a project I started for older daughter, this center of a circular blanket made from leftover sock yarn:


I say I started it, but that’s not entirely accurate. The reason I volunteered to do it for older daughter is that it is nearly impossible to do, and I always like a challenge. It’s a chance to learn something.

But in this case, what I learned is that I can’t do it. I tried, over and over and over. I took the yarn and size 2 double point needles to knit night last Thursday to take advantage of the advice and help from the knitters who have already started these blankets. The center of the blanket requires a circular cast-on, which everyone says is really difficult, so difficult that they advised me to instead make a crochet chain of nine loops, and then attach the beginning and end of the chain to make a circle. From there I needed to pick up nine stitches with the double point needles. And then start knitting yarn-overs? Yarn-overing? Making yarn-overs? Doing yarn-overs? OK, it’s like this….
K1, yo, K1, yo….and so on until there are eighteen stitches.

Only I couldn’t do any of it past the making a circle of nine loops. I spent about an hour and a half struggling with it. Ever try to yo between dp needles??? I say it can’t be done, but Lucille, bless her heart and soul, took over and got me started. Now I can work on it since there are more stitches and I’ve rearranged them so that NO yarn-overs are between the needles.

Once it is large enough to fit on 16-inch size 2 circular needles, I’m mailing it off to older daughter. It’s a great project because it requires little attention, and with four children in her life, she sometimes can only devote partial attention to knitting. It will be beautiful when it’s finished – all the different yarns randomly used throughout the blanket make for a one-of-a-kind, colorful project.

Have fun, H!