Twisted Gusset Sock

(Best color shot! Also Gus helping...)

Pattern: Kiila from Yarnissima for the Sock Knitters Anonymous Ravelry Groups May Mystery Sock (my ravelry project)
Materials: .85 skein Fiber Optic Foot Notes Sock Yarn in the colorway Spring Lilac OOAK
Made for: me
Needle: US1.5 40" Addi Turbo Circular
Start Date: 9 May 2009
Completion Date: 1 June 2009
Size: 11m

Notes: The first change I made was to add a bit more then an inch to the length of the foot on the large sized sock. Size 9.5 is just too small to fit. I made a guess as to how much I would need since when I did it I didn’t yet have the gusset instructions. I know there were several other knitters with longer feet that had the same problem of how long do you make it when everything else is unknown who had a bunch of reknitting to do. So I’m glad it worked out easily.

The second change that I made was to make the heel flap have some design for structure. Rather then knit it stocking stitch, I went ahead and did a slipped stitch which will hopefully give it some more durability. I’m glad that the gusset part of the pattern had several lengths so that I could get a nice long heel flap. I usually do 36 or 40 rows for a heel flap so this pattern really suited my habits.

The third change I made was that I wanted the leg to be longer. I added two cable repeats to the bottom portion of the leg before starting the gradual ribbing. I almost wish I had added a third cable too, but I dealt with that later in the ribbing.

The fourth change I made was to add three stitches (basically a k2p1 repeat, bringing stitch total to 65) to the ribbing at the back of the leg so that it would be looser where my calf widens since they were that tall. I added them to the plain ribbing portion after 15 rows of k2p1 ribbing after the last cable. I tried to make it grow out of the ribbing itself but my technique with right leaning increases could use some improvement. I have ideas for next time though.

The fifth and final change was to add in an additional 5 rows of straight ribbing to the top. This is what made up for not doing the third additional cable at the beginning of the foot.

Yarn? I can’t say enough good stuff about this yarn. I really really like it. It’s a fingerling to heavy fingerling. Very soft and smooth. The only caution I would give is to say that the colors represented in her Etsy shop are not even close to true to life on any of the seven computers I’ve looked at this yarn on. This particular skein showed up online much more pink and not so vivid. It wasn’t the exactly the same on all those monitors but it also wasn’t close to this purple either. Happily I liked it anyway when it got here and surprised me.

I think it makes terrific cables though I was admittedly a little put off with the knit through the back loop cables on this pattern. It made the left sides pull in a little too tightly and every thing leans slightly right. Also it left a gap down the right side of all the small cables between the twisted stitch and the not twisted stitch next to it. Basically they are a small line of holes that looks like I inserted a purl column on just one side of the cable. I don’t really like that but I’ll live with it surely. You can kind of see it in the above photo where there is some pulling between the cable and the stitches next to it.