Look at the new blog page! I’ve been so enthralled by the different types of knitted sock heels that it’s time to make a glossary so I can quickly look up.
If you know of any other heels or links I should include, PLEASE leave a comment so I can add it to the page.
I know that I don’t have links to all of the toe-up sites, the grandkids have been here since Wed so I’ve had to squeeze this project into the little time I’ve had.
Have a crafty day!
Heel options. Ravelry: Taina’s Kannanottoja:Cuff down: French 1 Dutch 2 Taffy 3 Band 4 heel Shaped common heel 9 Toe-up: French 5 Dutch 6 round 7 Reverse Dutch 8 other Afterthought: sädekavenus 13 Heel edeellä 10 unnamed 11 Afterthought tape 12, Short Rows One wedge heel 14 hourglass 15 Sweet tomato 16
I’ve been on a sock knitting kick since February. Unfortunately, my head injury has slowed me down considerably. If I’m not seeing double, I’m dizzy, both make it hard to knit. Anyway….. I’ve been introduced to different ways to knit heels. Who knew? It was a sock knitter’s secret.
All of these wonderful names for heels, but what do they look like. The Addicted to Knitting Socks FB group drops these names as if they are old friends. To a newbie socker, such as I, this sock heel key is a wonderful tool. It was posted on FB Knit-N-Purl- Soctober. The chart is downloadable to use as a reference. This is the link to Taina’s Ravelry page where she has the chart, scroll down to the bottom for descriptions and links. Taina also has a wonderful blog, Käsillään. It’s in Finnish but I found links to English sites for the socks. I know some of the heel patterns shown in the chart are not free. An Internet search did turn up quite a few free instructions.
Onerva Socks picture by © verano
I’ve found so many Finnish sock patterns lately. I’m figuring it has to do with the mtDNA (maternal DNA) which leads directly back to Finland. The earliest Finnish female line I have is from the 1500’s. In fact, I just translated the Onerva sock pattern, by Suvi Heikkilä from Finnish into English. I contacted her to see if she wanted the English translation, but have not had a response.
Fish Lips Kiss Heel © Patty-Joy White aka SoxTherapist
The wildly popular Fish Lips Kiss Heel, by Patty-Joy White aka Sox Therapist, which is $1.00 on Ravelry, is not shown in the chart. I purchased the pattern, but have not tried it yet.
So, what is your favorite heel? I really need to try more heels. I did knit the French heel in my February socks.
Have a fun, crafty day!
~Anytime we get together is our special time to knit. Picking a special location would be The Office aka Starbucks. Curl’s steaming hot decaf Americana and Q’s black iced tea, no water, no sweetener – what a way to start the day. Our bags are full of “stuff” to share with each other. We move the chairs around to the perfect position so the sun isn’t in our faces. After all of the sharing and drinking and snacking (ok, we do get a snack), we pull out our knitting project. Curls is such a fast knitter that she is usually further along than Q. It helps that we do any new parts of the project together, especially with the Norwegian Star slipper project. In the slipper project there was a typo when we got to the instep and with one reading and one knitting it was easy to figure out the problem.
As we are knitting, laughing, and generally having a marvelous time, people walk by to say “hi” and some to stop and chat. Women want to know about knitting, so we are able to open the world of knitting up to someone new. We both know how to crochet, but prefer knitting.
Lunch time, there is a deli next door to The Office which serves one of our favorite sandwiches; hot Santa Fe Chicken on a bagel. It’s hard when we have to pack up and say good-bye for the day. Another perfect day in paradise doing what we love!
~Neither Barb nor I would pass up a knitting pattern we liked that was listed as “Advanced”. As a pack to ourselves this year, each joint project that we do is specifically to learn a new technique – that is new to both of us. Doing the Norwegian Star slippers, we learned twined knitting. Looking inside of the slipper you can see how twined knitting looks. See that there are not any “carry along” strings. Each stitch gets twined or twisted before it is knit.
Our next project that we hope to start this week, is two color brioche knitting. We already have our two balls of variegated yarn.
We’ve chosen different color ways. Curls loves the harvest palette and I love the winter palette. If you are interested in learning how to knit brioche, join us! We’re still deciding between a couple of patterns. Barbara has knitted a type of brioche, the Fisherman’s Rib. You can see that in her scarf from the other day. She has not knitted the regular brioche, nor the two color; so this makes it a new technique for her. Let us know if you’d like to join in and we’ll let you know which pattern.
Two future projects are a linen stitch scarf and socks. We’ve knit our share of booties, but not socks. I did start one, but it was a BORING pattern so off the needles it came. As we see new techniques, they’ll be added to the projects we must do.
So, beyond beginner knitting, a few skill sets we already have, are: lace, cable, enterlac, twined, dropped stitch, cross-over stitches, beaded, Fair Isle, and whatever I can’t think of. Lol! Our mom is/was a wonderful knitter and so it’s in the genes! At 90, she says she just isn’t interested in knitting anymore. I keep offering to send needles and yarn. lol!
~Barb and I each have one Norwegian Star. We finally finished one slipper each! Some weeks ago, we shared when we first started knitting this project. I have to say, it is one of the most “painful” projects I’ve ever done! For arthritic hands the tiny #2 needles were sometimes hard to maneuver. And then, following that tiny chart! WOW! When we got together at Barb’s last Thursday, we both had knitted to the point where we needed to add the arch and cuff. Ah, I knitted to tightly, I was pulling the twisted yarn too tightly. And, pretend you don’t see the stitch that I dropped being held in place by a safety pin!
Curls is the best a picking up stitched from waste yarn. She is a machine knitter and there is quite a bit of that when using the knitting machine.
Don’t forget to pick up the very last stitch on the edge, it can be tricky to see with this yarn and this pattern:
Pick up the stitches on the other side and you’re ready to remove the waste yarn.
After the waste yarn is removed, it’s easy to see that it is a slipper!
Ready to knit again! I was thrilled to see Barb had put her yarns in the cake covers that I made for her. Look how warm and cozy they are:
We did find a “mistake” in the directions. Of course, we haven’t gone to a website to see if any errata are posted for the Scandinavian Slippers and Socks book. These are the directions: Row 3: Slip 1 st, TK (Twined Knit) to 1 st before marker, remove marker, sl st back, TK2tog tbl, turn, pm. Ok, do it! Knit to one stitch before the marker, now try to remove the marker while a stitch is still in front of it. 😎 Instructions should have said: Row 3: Slip 1 st, TK to 1 st before marker, slip stitch, remove marker, slip stitch back onto left needle, TK2tog tbl, turn, pm. We got to that point and it was “What-the-heck”? How can we remove the marker when there is still a stitch on the needle? The patten had that same error consistently in the instructions. That’s why why we knit the “new stuff” on this pattern together. It has taken both of us to translate some of the instructions! Lol. So, save some grief, listen to us! 😎 This arch part is done in short rows, and it really is quite clever. Final lap of the journey. Just black, white, black white – I can do this! I might just have one slipper. This was not a fun project for me! Of course, it was water off of a duck’s back for Barb! 😎 And, I did pick up the dropped stitch. Sigh…… Part of the problem is that because of the twisting, the yarn twists way back onto itself and had caused the two played strands to separate. This makes it difficult to see if there are two stitches or just one. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
It is a sewn bind off. Step One: Wind the yarn three times around the opening and then cut:
Step Two: Thread needle with yarn. Put needle purl-wise through first two stitches.
Step 3: Now put the needle back through the first stitch knit-wise. Pull through and take stitch off of needle. Continue around to end. Weave in ends.
This is what the twined stitch looks like inside of the work. Notice the yarns don’t look like Fair Isle where the yarns are carried along. Twined stitch makes a dense fabric.
Ta Da! Voila! It’s done! One slipper is off of the needles! Look how good it looks on my foot on Mariah! This should become my official spinning slipper!
The purpose of our joint projects is to learn some new knitting technique. In knitting our Norwegian Star slipper we learned how to: 1. do “Two-Strand Circular Cast On”, 2. twined knit, and 3. bind off withe “Sewn Bind Off”. Part of the joy of knitting is stretching oneself to learn something new! We’re glad to have learned some new tecniques!
Q – Two women had a strong influence in my upbringing; my mom and my grandmother. Both highly creative women in different media. One habit we have because of them; always carry a notepad in your purse because you never know what you’ll see when out-and-about that desperately needs to be written down. I have a couple of my grandmothers old, beat-up notepads. Ugly brown, but when I open them up and see my grandmother’s notes they are priceless. I’m brought back to my childhood, I can see her jotting down notes as we are out. She had notes about recipes, sketches about beading ideas, creations with yarn ideas, etc. Her hand were always busy creating something! I wish I had one of mom’s notepads. She designed such wonderful clothes for my sisters and me. Her notepad was filled with sewing ideas; such wonderful little dresses filled the pages. I was quite envious when one of the dresses was for a sister and not me!
There is nothing more wonderful than walking into a yarn, quilt or fabric store and seeing all the models on display. Fingers itching to do something new. We especially love it when the yarn stores have a tag hanging from the display identifying the pattern and it’s free! These are the notes for Curls and my trip to the Northwest, collected from various yarn stores, the majority of the free ones came from Yellow House Yarns in Puyallup:
Free Downloads:
Ravelry
Mara shawl – Amy Hendrix
Moon River Scarf – Susanna IC
Annis shawl – Susanna IC
Gaia Shoulder Hug – Anne Carroll Gilmour
Madrid laced wristlets – Alexandra Brinck (any one up by Puyallup, this was a class at Yellow House Yarns)
Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl – Maggie Magalie – If you love ginkgo leaves you must visit Marjorie Moser’s blog she silkscreens and dyes the most fabulous items.
Urchin hat – Ysolda Teague
Advent-Calender-Scarf 2011 with beads – Kristin Benecken
Matilde Shawl – Chiara Chiavacci
Knitty
Bitterroot shawl with beads – Rosemary (Romi) Hill – I love her patterns!
Crystal Palace Yarns
Jasmine Lace Fingerless Mitts – Adrienne Fong
Not free, but wonderful:
Snapdragon Tam – Ysolda Teague
Monica scarf – Trudy Van Stralen
Traveling Woman – Liz Abinante
Entwined Cowl – Taniis Gray – stay tuned, we’re not going to buy the pattern but we’ve got a “BIG” idea
Trousseau shawl – Carol Feller
This was free in February, but looks as if it is not now.
Berry Tam – Lijuan Jing
Also jotted down were titles of books and patterns that we liked. One was “Scandinavian Slippers and Socks” which Curls bought. We are knitting the Norwegian Star slipper pattern.
I found I spent the most money for yarns in Yellow House Yarns since they had so many models and the patterns were free. I figured free patterns = more yarn! I like that math! Very smart marketing on their part! This is just a sampling of the notes we took on our trip. Doesn’t include the sewing ideas which will be a different post. So, what’s in your notepad?
Curls and Q 