Adjust

So the wild sock was coming together well, with the stitch pattern working with the yarn to form vague stripes. I know - I said I decided I didn't want stripes. I also said something about not wanting to do a slipped stitch motif, and yet here we are.

What's with the attitude against slipped stitch motifs? Honestly, it's a bit silly. Slipped stitch motifs will change your row gauge - they'll compress it. Notice when working a slipped stitch heel flap, the fabric you get is scrunched down vertically compared to an equal number of rows of stockinette, since the slipped stitches are being forced to cover the space of two rows, and they compromise by compressing those two rows in vertical space. My objection here is that if the sole of the sock is worked in stockinette, then the patterned portion won't work out to the same amount of fabric with a slipped stitch motif. Effectively, you end up with more sole fabric than you need, and it makes the sole pooch out when the sock isn't worn. Realistically, that's not a big deal - I'm not sure anyone else out there has opinions about the appearance of unworn socks - but it bothers me enough that I generally avoid it. The Leyburn motif is a bit different, though - you slip one of every four rows, instead of every other row, and I hoped that that would make enough difference to not set off my own persnicketiness. It's a bit early to be able to tell.

Yesterday I was cruising along down the foot, when I noticed something.



Do you see it? That giant bruise-like stretch of purples? After I finished the gusset decreases, the yarn stopped doing the vague striping thing, and started pooling miserably. I kept going, hoping the colours would start to shift, but to no avail. I got grumpy. Why was it doing this? I had the same number of stitches as I did on the leg - what happened?! Then I calmed down and thought things through a bit. Yes, I had the same number of stitches - but they're not the same stitches. On the leg I had that slipped stitch deal going on both the front and the back, and now suddenly it's just the front/top of the foot. The sole is stockinette. That means that when I do a slipped stitch row, I use up different amounts of yarn on the foot compared to on the leg, and that difference was throwing off the overall yarn consumption rate in a way that made the colours stack.

I ripped it out. I couldn't live with socks that pooled like that.

But. I didn't undo the whole thing. I wondered if the socks could be salvaged by doing a couple of extra gusset decreases. I was working these over 68 stitches, which fits, but knitted fabric is stretchy, and I wondered if I could get away with knocking four stitches out of the sole. I was sure the socks would still fit - I've knit socks over 64 stitches at this sort of gauge in the past and it's been fine - but would that be enough to get the vague stripes back?

Well. I need to put a bit more in before I can draw a firm conclusion. So far, though, it seems to have been a good adjustment.

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