I've been itching to cast on a new project the past few days, but decided I should stick to my goal of finishing my WIPs first. To that end, I prepped my Paraphernalia Socks for surgery last night.
The pattern design is a series of cables surrounded by ribbing. It starts with a center twist over two ribs, which you can see in the picture just below the lowest needle. After that comes a quite lovely intertwined cable worked over six ribs, which pulls in the fabric quite a bit.
Unfortunately for me, one of the intertwined cables fell right at the top of the gusset and therefore right at the point where my socks get stretched the most. Another hit was that the complex pattern started right before the heel flap. If I simply frogged back to before it began, I'd lose all the heel flap and gusset knitting I'd done.
What you see above is the whole sock frogged back to a few rows after finishing the gussets - I had knit about 2 inches before trying it on - and the main pattern ripped out row by row. Yarn from the individual rows top to bottom is fanned out from left to right. I picked up a tiny crochet hook this afternoon, which will serve as my scalpel during this sock surgery.
My plan to alleviate the tightness in the pattern across my ankle is to reknit the pattern with only the central cable continuing through where the original intertwined pattern was. I'll continue for one full repeat with only the middle cable, which should land far enough past my ankle to make the socks fit better. I'll start out picking up the two columns of ribbing on either side of the pattern, and then work the cable itself row by row. Wish me luck.
