Hello everyone! So, I knit some more sweet tomato heel socks over our last couple of times on the road. After making a few pairs using thicker-than-normal sock yarn, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about using the “real” stuff. But as it turned out, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the tiny neat stitches appear one after the other, and it didn’t bother me that it took a little longer.

I divided the yarn by weight, thinking that way I could make both socks from the toe up, stop when I ran out of yarn, and they’d end up pretty much the same length. But, I threw in enough experimenting that my yarn usage wasn’t the same at all on the second sock … I should have known that would happen! Next time I’ll either make both at the same time, or, if after the first heel I want to try something different for the next one, I’ll wait to finish the legs until I see how much yarn is left.

Another thing I learned while making this pair is that for my feet and legs, 425 yards of fairly standard sock yarn will make a boot sock, tall enough to overlap leggings, but not tall enough to reach over my calf. As far as I know, no force on Earth will keep socks of this length up, unless they have something that provides more friction than a leg to hold on to. I like wearing these, in fact they’re my favorite socks right now. However, having substantial leftover yarn drives me crazy, and next time I’d like to get enough to make knee socks, so maybe I’ll look for two smaller skeins, or a really long one.

If you’d like to make a similar sock, or see the knit-nerd details about the two heels and what I’ve learned about fitting sweet tomato heels so far, all that is on Ravelry.

This pattern is the “Sweet Coriolis Socks” from Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Socks ebook. She also recommended this yarn in a workshop I took, it’s Mountain Colors Crazyfoot. This particular color (“Chinook”) called my name at Purl in the Pines. I liked working with this yarn, although a fair amount of blue-green dye bled off in the first washing. We’ll see how they hold up!

Cat Bordhi is one of my knitting heroines, and I know variations of this pattern have appeared in several of her books, so I was excited to try it. Although I like how the finished socks look, my brain and this pattern weren’t quite in harmony. I never really got into a flow with the coriolis ribbing, and I kept having to check to make sure I was in the right spot. And, the experiments I tried with the heels threw off the expected path for the coriolis band at the hinge of the foot, especially on the second sock, where it got lost for a while. If you’re still experimenting with the fit of your heel/foot, I’d recommend sticking with a pattern that holds steady on top of the foot, until you figure things out and can do some calculating ahead of time.

I’m getting really close to a great fit with this heel, and I liked the padded variation I tried this time a lot. Still, I’m thinking I may knit some non-sweet-tomato socks for my next pair, if for no other reason than to get some perspective on the different heel techniques … there’s always more to learn, which is what keeps me knitting!