3.23.12 - The center lace panel is fun. Started with 8 knitted-on stitches rather than my usual long-tail. Worked first round with tail to sort of weave in end. first few rows were very fiddly (so few stitches on 4 needles…). I thought this yarn was solid yellow, but it’s looking slightly tonal to me (which is nice).

3.24.12 - First short row toe ever. Using instructions from http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter02/FEATtiptoptoes.html
later - short row toe is a success. I do believe that I will finish this sock, evaluate it for fit, and frog and reknit it. The lace section is closer to the toe than I would like; I’d rather it be higher up the instep so that it is at least partly visible when wearing shoes. I may change colours at that point too…

3.29.12 - Finished the lace panel in the dark blue and the dark green I have; I think a slightly lighter color for both would be nice for the final sock, but I’m leaning toward making the final socks out of the blue. Both are Cascade Heritage Sock. Will stare at the yellow and blue for a while and decide tomorrow.
3.25.12 - Working the heel using directions from here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall08/FEATsocks102.html

3.26.12 - Cast off after a couple inches of stockinette leg to evaluate fit and plan the next sock. After going through others’ projects and staring at the sock on my foot, I think I will knit about 30 rows after the lace square before starting the toe, come back up the sole of the foot, and start working the heel with 10 rows of lace left to pick up. I have yet to decide on whether I want a gusset or not, but I think that I’ll do what one person did, and not k2tog when picking up the lace edge stitches after finishing the heel, to make a sort of gusset. If I can figure it out. I am going to spend the next couple days swatching the lace in other colors before deciding which yarn I want the final socks to be in.

3.30.12 - Poll in KAL thread reveals that slightly more people prefer the blue to the yellow (shibui sock, in colourway 330 jonquil), which is what I was leaning towards. After knitting 30 rows toward the toe, decided that the lace motif was still too far down the foot, and did another 10 rows (40 rows altogether). Starting short row toe, going to try shadow wrap technique http://www.socktopus.co.uk/2011/02/short-rows-shadow-wraps/

4.1.12 - Did the toe and the first part of the toe yesterday. Today got up to most of the leg … I think this is what I did.
Knit the stockinette sole, K2tog(or)p2togtbl at the end of each row to join the sole to the top of the sock, slipping the first stitch of each row. For some reason, the k2tog side has holes along the join. Managed to drop a stitch at one of these, and it turns out that this will lead to a zipper effect of undoing the top of the sock from the bottom of the sock. Managed to crochet-hook it back up, after a bit of staring intently at the remaining stitches, but somehow came up one short. Maintained 32 stitch sole until 16 stitches before end of lace panel. Simply knit/purled the edge-of-lace-panel stitch for 12 rows (6 on each side) to make a gusset (ended with 44 stitches on main needle). Slipped 6 stitches on either side onto the holding-the-edges-of-the-lace-panel needles, worked short row heel using shadow wraps down to 12 unworked stitches in center and back out again. Went back to the k2tog/p2togtbl back-and-forth stockinette to pick up the 6 stitches + the 10 remaining lace panel stitches. Then to stockinette in the round (yay! just in time for the drive home, which was into the sun, so I couldn’t see what I was doing).

4.23.12 notes about the second sock. 40 rounds of leg, 15 rounds of ribbing. Don’t like K1tbl, P1 ribbing, but did it anyway, because I think it looks more delicate, to go with the lace. Turns out I don’t like weaving ends into it either. For second sock, when joining the sole to the top of the sock, I used p2togtbl as before, and figured out a convoluted k2tog that was the same as the p2togtbl but in the knit version. I don’t actually know whether it ended up being knit through the back loop or the front loop, but it was convoluted and removed the problem of big holes along the join that I had with the first sock (on the last photo, the holes are visible in the bottom sock (er, closer to the camera?))