Starting StitchNorth Prep, Moonshine Cabin Update, and Ribbed Helix 2.0

There are 44 sleeps until StitchNorth, the first big stitching retreat held by Caroline McNeil from Evertote.ca. It will be held at the Brampton Courtyard by Marriott the first weekend of April. COVID mandates are being lifted and by then, the only mandate might be social distancing and mask-wearing. One of the events will be a smalls exchange. I have decided to stitch a the Four Little Hearts biscornu from Indigo Rose. It used to be a free pattern but no longer is available online. I still had a copy of it from when I stitched it a few years ago during my biscornu stitching phase.

I completed most of the stitching on one side during the SuperBowl. There are Rhodes squares in the 4 corners which I may do in a colour closest to one of the hues in the DMC variations floss I'm using. I had the 32ct linen fabric in my stash.

More was done yesterday during my Monday morning chat and later that day.

I will adapt some elements of this chart to make a scissor fob and am thinking of making a scissor case out of a similar pattern using the same colour floss. I want to bling it up, substituting beads for some of the individual stitches diagonal to the corners on one side of it. 

I got a lot of the tree on the left side of Mooshine Cabin done on Sunday. There is a lot of counting on this dark, 36ct fabric.

I frogged the helix sock I was working on because the 72st leg was too loose. Instead, I am using the same number of sts but have done 3 x 1 ribbing for the entire leg of the sock. 

I decided against the afterthought heel and instead used a Fish Lips Kiss (FLK) heel in the darker yarn and have continued the helix pattern for the foot in stocking stitch. FLK is an easy short row heel that leaves no holes. The first 8 of the 16 pages discuss sock architecture and construction again à la Cat Bordhi IMHO. The actual heel pattern is on pgs. 9 - 11 with step by step photos on the last 5 pages describing the twin stitch knit and twin stitch purl (part of the short row instructions). The entire .pdf is only $1 - a very good deal for some excellent instruction. I haven't checked but I'm sure there are YouTube videos on the topic as well.

I could have opted to continue the ribbing on the instep but instead am going to make decreases down to 68sts to make the foot off the sock snugger. 

Because there were no gussets at the sides of the sock, I am making the decreases on the bottom of the foot à la Cat Bordhi (RIP). I counted in 12 sts from each side and have placed markers there. I will decrease on the outsides of the markers until I have 68 sts. then will test the feel of the foot of the sock. I could continue to decrease down to 64 sts which is a good size factoring negative ease. I don't like my sock feet to be too loose.

Cat had such interesting ideas about sock architecture. I am grateful I took the opportunity to take a class with her at the very first KnitEast in St. Andrews-By-The-Sea NB. I still have the cardboard template we made of our foot outlined in her book,  'Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters'.

I just checked eBay and this out of print book is selling for ridiculously high prices. It is available from her website in digital format for $20US.

Now that I see some of these prices, I need to seriously consider selling some of the books from my knitting library that are out of print.