Two at once, Toe up Thoughts

So, I'm working on Two at once, Toe up, Magic Loop socks... not as easy as I thought it'd be.

Starting the toes on magic loop with a figure 8 cast on is kind of a pain. Very floppy, very slippery. The best way I've found to do this is to work one toe all the way through the increases, stopping right after an increase round, then put the first one on a holder and start the second, increasing til the number of stitches matches the first toe, stopping right after an increase round. From there, just knit around, making sure to knit one half of each sock on to each side of the loop in the proper order and voila! Two socks, one needle!

Secondly, math blows. I'd love to say I became an artist so that I wouldn't have to do math, but the truth is that I do math constantly as an artist, so I really don't want any more than I absolutely must have in my knitting. Therefore, I have looked carefully at many other socks I have made and come to the conclusion that however many stitches started the toe is how many stitches should be left in the center of the heel when turning. No fancy math or anything like that, just subtract the number of stitches used for the toe-up cast on from the total number of sole stitches and divide the remainder by two!

For my current sock, this means 32 sole stitches, minus 12 starting stitches leaves 20 stitches, 10 on each side to wrap and turn in my short row heel. This would still work with a traditional heel flap in that to start the heel turn after knitting the flap I would knit across 21 stitches, SSK, turn and purl back 11, p2tog, ect. until only 12 stitches remain. What if, uh-oh!, I had 33 stitches? Easy, peasy! Make your center stitch count 13, with 10 on each side, or if you have a narrow heel 11 center with 11 on each side! Problem solved.

Finally, short rows require exceptionally tight knitting. Forgetting to pull a wrap up really tight or to knit the next stitch in the turn when picking up wraps really tight results in a funky looking little almost-hole. I'll have to see how it turns out in the wash, but right now, I'm not happy. Now, if it straightens up in the wash, I may abandon my figure 8 increasing toe and go with a figure 8 short row toe. We'll see how that goes :)

Until next time: "Follow your spirit and upon this charge cry, 'God for Harry! England and St. George!"