Absinthe

I started Absinthe out of Wild Fire Fiber's June sock club offering. This one was an oceanic inspiration out of Cyrus, a cashmere blend, and the blues made me think immediately of Absinthe. LSG, a group I frequent on Ravelry, started a KAL of Absinthe, so I joined up. I typically don't do toe-up socks because of my high instep. Short row heels aren't big enough, and your average sized heel flap doesn't work either. I always get those couple of rows just after the heel that are way too tight. Absinthe is a lovely toe-up socks with a gorgeous pattern and a heel flap, so I figured, why not? As I don't usually do toe-up, I didn't quite get the construction when reading through. Once I finally figured out what was going on, I realized that to make a taller heel flap, I'd need to re-work the pattern to add more increases in some way. Of course, I didn't realize this until after I was done with the pattern and on to the heel turn, so this was way too late for me. More rows, increasing the gusset would also make a longer foot and that wouldn't fit. Another consideration is that this yarn has shown that it does not like to be frogged.

I optimistically figured that since I was already at the heel flap, I may as well forge ahead and do one repeat of the leg before deciding if frogging was necessary. After all, if I'm going to frog, adding a few yards of yarn to the frogging isn't that big a deal, and if I find I don't have to frog, life is good. Of course, now that I am nearly done with the first repeat of the leg, I switched from the DPNs to an open cable from my interchangeable needles, and, lo and behold, I cannot get the sock on. Now, should I:

a. Rip it all out?
b. Rip back to before the pattern and re-figure what needs to be done to make it fit?
c. First figure out how to add in a larger gusset, then rip back to that part?


I do like the pattern in this yarn. For re-figuring the gusset, I have two main options. First, I need to know how many more rows need to be in the heel flap to make it fit (16) and then I can either make sharper increases in the already present gusset area or start the pattern earlier, which would start the leg earlier as well. I think for a better fitting sock, I should go with the second option, which requires ripping back to before the pattern and then going from there. For this option, I'll be starting the pattern 16 rows earlier, because that's how many more gusset stitches I need and every other row adds two gusset stitches. This means I'll also be starting the leg pattern while still increasing for the gusset, and have just over one pattern repeat in the leg area before the heel flap is complete. I don't think that will look bad, in fact, I think it might look better, finishing the foot pattern lower and having the leg come up out of the foot instead of the foot joining up at the base of the let. If you know what I mean.

It's quite sad when you have to rip out 95% of a sock, about 40% of the total sock, for a problem. I guess that's one of the good things about knitting though, you can rip back if need be to make whatever it is you're knitting however you want it.