A while back, when I was about halfway through the swallowtail shawl I was presented with a knitting conundrum. I was getting ready to leave for a weekend trip to Vermont with a big group of friends, one of them being a new knitter. I didn’t want to bring the swallowtail shawl, cause I can’t exactly knit lace from charts and socialize at the same time without making mistakes. That was the perfect excuse for me to cast on for some no-nonsense stockinette stripy socks!
The yarn is Vesper Sock, and I’ve had it for quite a while. I probably bought it back in my yarn-binging days of 2007. I’ve knitted socks with this yarn before (a pair for Joey- blue, red and brown stripes) and now its my turn to get a pair of stripy socks. I’ll be doing an afterthought heel on this pair as well, which I think is the best way to do a heel with self-striping yarn.
The afterthought heel is super easy- when you get to the point where you want to start the heel, you knit half the stitches on one round with waste yarn (the yellow line of stitches in the pic above). Then, after you’ve finished the leg, you remove the waste yarn and put the live stitches back on your needles and knit the heel. (I just decrease like you would for a toe, and it comes out pretty well.)
And just so you can see what was going on outside my window while I was snapping sock pics on my dirty windowsill:
Trash Day!
Love Is All You Knit 