techiniques

Dear Mom,

So I have been working on some toe-up socks using KnitPicks Felici self-striping yarn.

Rather than do my usual short row toe, I did a Turkish cast on with half the total number of stitches and then did and increase toe. It went pretty well and certainly looks good. When I got to the part where the heel should be, I ran into a problem that I probably should have anticipated. Short row heels and self-striping sock yarn don't mix well. The sequence of the stripes gets mixed up and out of whack.

My chaos loving husband thinks this is a good look, but I am pretty Type-A so it was bothering me. I felt that there must be a better way. Ravelry to the rescue. A quick search in the forums turned up this tutorial in the exact yarn I am using.

It uses the afterthought heel which the Yarn Harlot has also blogged about and which originated with Elizabeth Zimmerman of course. I can't decide whether to try it out on the next sock and have totally mis-matched socks or to wait and use it on the next pair of self-striping socks instead. What do you think? In addition to keeping your pattern aligned, the afterthought heel can be removed separately and reknit if it develops a hole which is pretty cool though I am not sure I would venture that far into sock repair.