Having a heeluva time, my dear. Wish you were here.*

I'm at the heel turn on two separate socks right now. I'm doing the PGR heel on Keith's heathery grey and blue Jawoll sock, and I'm trying to use Lucy Neatby's short row garter heel on my Meanie sock in the lovely Lunamoth colorway.

On Keith's sock, he wants different colored heels and toes, so I've added the blue and the blue reinforcing thread to the sock for the heel. This means I have 3 balls of yarn on this one sock right now. Really wanting to watch Bones and House last night, I did the heel on my Meanie sock so I could stick with just one ball of yarn.

Lucy suggests that you use a separate ball of yarn for the heel in order to have nice corners. Did I mention I was feeling lazy and just wanted to use one ball of yarn? I decided to carry on with my one yarn and not add any others. After all, it works for the PGR heel.

At midnight last night I had finished with the heel turn. I looked at it. Hmm, big hole on one side. Tried it on. Boy, are those rows looking too stretched out. Hell, it's midnight, and I'm going to sleep. I'll look at it again in the morning.

Heel stitches still too stretched. Big hole still there. I can see that on one side of the heel turn the rows match up nicely, but on the other you have 2 (or was it 3) trying to butt up against one, and it just doesn't work. I see how Lucy could use the yarn tail to fix that sucker up, but after taking her class, I don't think that's how she would fix it.

Knitting is a continual learning process. I pulled out my needle and frogged the heel. I decided I needed another couple of rows before turning the heel since garter is shorter than stockinette, and I hadn't thought about that. (One thing learned.) Also, I want to re-work the last row or two where the heel rejoins the sock. To hell with directions and patterns. Are they not merely guidelines? I can take what I need from them and consider what I need to do to make that heel work to my satisfaction.

I know how long I need to knit a sock foot before turning for the heel with a PGR heel, but with this new for me heel I need a new length. There is no way to get that besides a bit of trial and error. Sure, I have a very good idea of what is needed, but I'll have to knit that sucker to see if my idea works.

And thus starts day 1 of my short vacation. Just to be able to stay home and sleep late is so wonderful.

*Part of a lyric from Alice Cooper Goes to Hell. Can't remember which song it is this morning.