Bright and breezy

Our tomatoes are finally ripening. They were late starters due to an exceptionally cold and damp May, June and July and we didn't even have any fruit until quite recently but now there are little green tomatoes all over the plants and some of them are evening turning orange. It's somewhat of a miracle given that the plants of much more careful gardeners and allotment owners all over the country have been blighted by, well, blight.



I've cast on my first pair of post-Sockapalooza socks (yay!) using the lovely Colinette Jitterbug yarn I bought from Get Knitted along with the Fyberspates I used for Sockapalooza. I cast about for a long time looking for socks I could knit with this yarn - it's a bit on the firm side and I didn't think it would knit up well with any size needles under 2.75mm - finally I spotted the Breeze socks from the recent Knitty. They're not actually socks, rather they're anklets, but I've added on a leg using two repeats of the instep pattern for the front and 24 rows of lace rib (inspired by Nancy Bush's Birch Leaf socks from A Gathering of Lace), then 24 rows of plain stocking stitch (which gives the yarn a real chance to show off its beautiful colour) for the back leg.



You might notice from the photos that these are not only top-down socks but they're top-down socks with a heel flap (gasp!). Whatever is next, knitting on two circulars? I'm not going that far (phew) but I'm coming around, if not actually yet converted, on the subject of the heel flap. I think I was scarred by a few early patterns I knit which tried to have a sort of semi-circle (increasing short rows) at the heel turning bit. I don't know if it was my fault or the pattern (probably the former) but my semi-circle never sat squarely in the centre of the heel, it was lop-sided. I have no issues with assymetry so long as it's intentional but I hated fudging stitches to make things even up. Other issues included the fact that the heel felt baggy and seemed to go on forever. So when I found a neat, symmetrical economical heel (the short-row) I never looked back.



However, I was tempted back into heel flaps by this pattern which has a heel decorated with cables and seed stitch (so pretty) and has a square turning (so tidy) and the fit is perfect.

Knitted Walking Stick Cosy Competition update

Brenda mentions Felix's competition in this week's Cast-On. Do listen in to the best knitting podcast out there!