Lankylocks and the Three Socks

Once upon a time, not very long long ago, there was a knitter named Lankylocks who lived in a little village in a not very mysterious or magical land. One day she was pottering around her house and she saw her conservatory. She pushed open the door, climbed over the boxes of recycling and as she did so she thought to herself, I wonder what knitwear is in here (for let us remember gentle reader, this was the house of a knitter and yarn is never more than a few feet away).

The door into the garden was open and Lankylocks started to realise that her feet were bare:

And as the cool breeze blew in across the tulips she started to look for socks.

The first sock she found:

Was too small, far too small, so she sent it on its way to Indiana

The second sock she found:

Was too big, AND unfinished (although in the interests of full and frank disclosure in fairy tales it should be acknowledged that this sock has now been finished. It still awaits its mate) and she realised it was really for a friend with a birthday next Saturday.

But the third socks she found:

Were just right. Perfect in fact.

And Lankylocks had warm feet happily ever after (until she got too hot and took them off again).
My latest perfect socks are my interpretation of the Ocean Toes socks in Cat Bordhi's book, New Pathways for Socks Knitters. The original pattern is written for DK weight yarn but this 4ply Arucania Ranco was just calling to be knit into these socks. My amendments are as follows:

• the pattern is written for 4 repeats in a round on the cuff - I cast on for 5 repeats and maintained that down the cuff, using the repeat as written. Basically instead of having a square with a back, front and two sides, I had a pentagon with the point of the pentagon at the centre back.

• when you get to the increases for the heel expansion start to increase in all 5 garter stitch sections as written. Then when you get to the slip stitch section, instead of having a slip stitch panel at the centre back of the heel, I had two slip stitch panels and 3 in pattern so that the heel looks like this:
  
  

• I then turned the heel across those stitches and knit back and forth until half of the side panels had been included. I then knit short rows to bring in the rest of the side panels without loosing any more stitches. It looked a bit like this:
  
  
• because I have long feet I then knit another few rounds before I started the last two charts and I started a symmetrical toe at round 22 of chart 5.

These socks have a lovely fit and they suit the name - here is the ocean lapping at the toe!

And finally for today, Jamie the Knitting Bandit asked the definition of grotty - it generally means dirty or grubby but a grotty day is one where you just feel like you spent the day banging your head into a brick wall. I asked H how to describe it and he said it was any day that wasn't Saturday or Sunday!