In Which the Pirate Loses Stitches.

Every time I put my sock in progress into my purse, I think “I sure hope none of the stitches slide off the needles.” They almost never do… but when I took the toe of my handspun sock out of my bag, I noticed a suspiciously ramen-like section of yarn. Yep, sure enough. some of the stitches had slid free and dropped down a few rows. Phooey!

In lieu of fixing it, I worked on the Cascade Heritage sock. I’m done with the leg and about to start the heel flap, but I’ve run into math troubles. I’d thought to continue the k3, p1 ribbing down the heel, but this is a 68 stitch sock – so there are seventeen groups of four stitches – so how many of them would I use to make a symmetrical heel flap? If I want to frame the instep with purl stitches, that would mean doing the ribbed heel flap over 35 stitches rather than 34. And then what are the heel turn numbers?

The internet has the solution: apparently 70 stitch socks, with 35 stitch heel flaps, are not uncommon! I checked a few different patterns and picked the numbers which looked best to me. Here’s hoping it works out well. If it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve un-knit a heel flap!