The Sockapaloooza sock knitting has begun! The socks are the Elongated Corded Rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, knit with Louet Gems Opal in a pretty sky blue color.

[FYI - SKS is a wonderful book with dozens of neat sock patterns that will work for almost any yarn gauge, color (solid/stripe/variegated), sock knitting technique (4 or 5 DPN, 2 circs, magic loop), and foot size.]

The only problem is the heel of the sock… is it just me or is this an unnaturally large heel? To give you an idea of the actual sock size, the dpns are about 8 inches long.

I realize that the ribbing pulls in quite a bit on the leg and the foot of the sock, so that may be affecting the scale of things a little, but the heel just looks completely out of proportion to the rest of the sock right now. I don’t quite understand, because my gauge is right on, and I’ve followed the pattern exactly. But the heel just looks enormous and out of place to me. Unfortunately, my sock pal’s feet are a couple of sizes larger than my feet, so I can’t get a good idea of how these will fit her by trying them on myself. The sock isn’t overly huge on me, and the ribbing allows for a little leeway in fit, but I’m still worried that my pal will end up with baggy heeled socks. Not good!

I’m debating whether I should rip the heel and use a short row heel instead. If anyone has thoughts or suggestions, please let me know!

I’m really enjoying this pattern. I love how the ribbing looks when it is slightly stretched, and I’m hoping that because the ribbing is stretchy it will fit the recipient perfectly. This is also a very simple stitch pattern - a 4 stitch, 8 row repeat, and only two of the eight rows deviate from 2×2 ribbing. Total mindless knitting, yet still quite pretty! Love it!

The most difficult part of the sock so far was picking up stitches around the heel flap. You can see in the top picture that there is a 3-st garter stitch border on the heel flap. I had a bit of a tough time figuring out how to pick up stitches on the edge of the garter stitch. If you do it wrong, you end up with big gaping holes at the edge of the heel flap! My heel flap preference is a slipped stitch edging, which makes it much easier to know where to pick up the stitches, and is virtually hole-proof.