The decision was, to try again.

Armed with Dawn’s comment, and the links I posted yesterday, I’m having another go at a Reverse French Heel. I’ve nearly finished the gusset increases. I think I have a picture in my head of what I’m trying to do.

Another very odd thing about the Schurch & Parrott instructions – perhaps the oddest of all – is that the heel isn’t centred between the lines of the gusset increases. Normally, with a cluster of “mistakes” like this, I would suspect there to be one line somewhere which I had misunderstood, from which all subsequent confusion flowed. I think you are thinking along the same lines, Tamar.

(I am a devoted follower of William of Ockham. He has rescued me from many a jam. His basic idea – Occam’s Razor -- is that one explanation is better than a cluster of them – pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, in other words.)

But in this case, I can’t find it. So I will centre the heel between the gussets, and knit the heel flap until I have decreased down to the original number of stitches. And we shall see.

Thank you for pointing me to WendyKnits, Teresa. She was only a vague name to me – what an interesting and prolific designer! I didn’t find the exact guidance I needed among her free sock patterns, probably from lack of persistence on my part. I found one with gussets followed by a heel turn, but no flap.

I have ordered her book “Socks from the Toe Up”. In for a penny…

I sort of toyed with the idea, this morning, of ordering some Poems sock yarn. But I found – Google found for me – a little video about it from Jimmy Bean, in which I learned that it is unplyed, like Zauberballs (but unlike Crazy Zauberballs). So I think I had better knit an unplyed Zauberball first, and see how I like it.

Catmum, I mean to go back to the Sweet Tomato Heel for my next pair of socks, having started them with Judy’s Magic Cast-On. Then I must find out what Candace Strick is up to. And there's still the Afterthought Heel to try. There’s no end in sight.

Non-knit

I got back to work on the dining room ceiling yesterday. ChemDry pronounced it dry last Thursday, a week ago today, but the news has yet to reach the contractor. It has to travel up the chain through the loss adjuster to the insurance company, and then back down again. I didn’t get anywhere. The dining room is full of scaffolding, so they can’t just abandon us.