a simple yarn

Okay…flu over, house fumigated, paper hearts packed away for another year…now, back to knitting.

I turned my first real sock heel yesterday and it actually turned! Yippee! I say, ‘yippee’ cuz it doesn’t always turn out that way first time around.

Before someone thinks I’m a knitting whiz (which is untrue) or pokes me with a needle (which would be unpleasant) let me say that it was easier because I found this was actually not the first time I had done it.

First sock…yes.
First heel turn…no….but I didn’t know what I was doing was in fact heel turning.

Warning: Screen gets foggy for flashback memory…

When I first learned to knit, I saw a pattern I really loved-felted clogs. What great slippers! I made a pair which I absolutely adored. Of course they eventually wore out. I made another pair…then a pair for Husband-Will….and my sister…and my mother…and another pair for me.

The first go at the pattern was challenging and I had to follow the directions quite closely, but thankfully they were well written. I didn’t know the terminology then, but what I was doing was a series of short rows….

Slip 1, Knit a series of stitches, SSK, Turn
Slip 1, Purl a series of stitches, P2tog, Turn

Sound familiar? What I was doing to create the top of the slipper was the same basic process for turning a sock heel. I just didn’t know it back then. So, today’s work proved a little less stressful for having unknowingly been down that road before…