. . . With a Little Help From My Friends

I turned my first heel this week, thanks to Queen of Purple Yarn, my librarian friend from school, Kathy. In fact, it was her moral support, a well-placed stitch marker, and sage instructions ("follow the instructions exactly!") that provided the impetus to get my sock past the calf. I met her at Purlescence and with several other happy knitters, I started down the road to heeldom. And then I realized I was messing it up, and had been for some time. Ripped back, and then started finding that I was losing stitches (tiny stitches, sockweight yarn . . . hard to keep control of!). The shop was ready to close, so Kathy helped me get all the stitches back on or "saved" so they wouldn't drop any further.

Cut to the next day when I told myself, I can do this. I carefully used a crochet hook to get the errant stitches corrected, verified that they were all straight, and then followed the Pure and Simple directions. And they were quite straightforward. As Bells and QPY had pointed out, if it seems strange, what the instrux say one should do, just believe them. Similarly, QPY had told me that it would become intuitively sensible as I got further into it. What wise knitters in my world! With additional support from Jejune, I felt I would be able to give it a go, and I did! The more I knitted, the more I could see the plan, and then the triangle started becoming obvious, woo-hoo.

Now to rest on this laurel a little while, until I can get more serious supportive help on the picking up of stitches and finishing the sock. More good advice from Bells came my way on this step, but I am sure I will need moral support and good practical guidance from QPY when I give this part a go. 8^)