Hi all,

I received a question about the house socks pattern last night. In working a swatch to answer it, I realized that the numbers in the heel turn section of the pattern are slightly off. The new version is available here: download now

If you just want to change the heel numbers, I’ve added them at the bottom of this post.

In other news, I’ve wrecked the timing on my sewing machine by sewing that honkin’ thick jeans charity quilt. The last time I did this to my old trusty machine it cost me around $150 to fix. I’m contemplating trying to fix it myself; wish me luck!

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Heel
For now, ignore your instep stitches and work only with your gusset / sole stitches.
Join your contrasting color yarn, and knit across your gusset, sole, and other gusset (48 sts).
When you reach the end of the second gusset, turn and work as follows:
WS – p36, wrap & turn
RS – k24, wrap & turn
WS – p23, wrap & turn
Continue in this manner until you have 12 stitches still unwrapped in the middle.
Sanity check: 12 in the middle, 7 wrapped on each side, then 11 unwrapped on each end.

WS – p12, then p6 picking up wraps and knitting them together with the stitch as you go.
Purl the next stitch, wrap, and unwrapped stitch together (p3tog), turn.

RS – sl1, k18, k next 6 stitches picking up wraps and knitting them together with the stitch as you go. Knit the next stitch, wrap, and unwrapped stitch together (k3tog), turn.

WS – sl1, p24, p2tog, turn.
RS – sl1, k24, k2tog, turn.

Continue in this manner until all gusset stitches are worked. You should have 26 heel stitches. Cut contrasting yarn.

I can never find a purse small enough for me! I’m one of those wallet, pen, phone types of people. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll stuff any size purse I decide to carry around, eventually. Then it hurts my back and shoulder to lug it about! So, smaller is better.

After scouring the ‘net for a pattern, I ended up with this wristlet. Turns out the lady who made the pattern lives all of about 30 minutes from me – small world!

The fabric is two fat quarters that my sisters gifted me with years ago. They haven’t made their way into a quilt yet, so they were fair game. I made plenty of mistakes putting this together, but I’m not about to show you what they are! It’s serviceable, and the fabric hides a lot. Whew.

I’m a sucker for a nice celtic cable. I was immediately drawn to Rogue – what celtic cable-lover wouldn’t be? When I purchased the pattern, I knew I’d be in for some new techniques. That is half the fun, after all. What I didn’t know at the time is that the pretty hood braid is grafted – right in the middle, in front of God and everybody. Oh, my.

Regular old grafting / kitchener stitch is something I learned with glee a few years ago in order to close the toes on my socks. Grafting knits and purls, I thought, would be in an entirely different league. Luckily, many have walked this path before me. If you want your very own cheat sheet for Rogue, look here. I didn’t opt for this route, though, because I wanted a solution I’d be able to apply to *any* cable or braid. I’m stubborn like that.

What I stumbled upon, thanks to Ravelry, is Lucy Neatby’s ‘chimney’ method (see it here.) In essence, you knit and purl in pattern for several rows using waste yarn. Then, you pop the waste yarn rows (the chimney) inside your garment, and use the waste yarn as your road map on how to sew your grafting seam. Brilliant! The best part, for me, is that the waste yarn is holding what would be your live stitches. If your grafting isn’t as pretty as you want it, rip it out and do it over!

The Chimney	During the graft	The underside after grafting

I ended up grafting it twice. On the second graft, I cheated and didn’t follow the waste yarn path exactly. When you’re grafting, you end up with each side being a half-stitch off. In stockinette stitch, this doesn’t show up much, but it sure does with a cable! I didn’t see any clear way around the half-stitch offset, so I just fudged the leading edge of my cable each time I came to one. The trailing edge didn’t seem to be as noticeable, so I left it as-is. I’m hoping blocking will help even everything out. I could do it a third time, but I won’t without a clear idea of how I could make it better.

First Try	Second Try

So, what do you all think? Do you have another way to attack a cable graft? I’m all ears!

I tried on my sleeveless Rogue, and it mostly fits. It’s a little long and a little big around, but I’m okay with that. Next up is the weaving in and blocking of the main body before I steek this sucker. Yeah, I’ve never done that, either. And this is superwash wool (hello, sewing machine!) I’m steeking it before I knit the sleeves on the theory that if I mess it up, at least I won’t have wasted all that time knitting sleeves. I’m an optimist like that.