Bizonkulous

I spent the last couple weeks working on these adorable things for a friend of mine, who’s having a baby in May.

Pattern:  Tulip Toes, by Cathy Campaigne for Knitty.
Yarn:  Louet Gems Pearl leftovers

It’s a really quick knit, notwithstanding the “last couple weeks” bit - I mostly did it one or two rows at a time at work or on the bus, and I had to restart a bunch of times because of the pattern tweaking (below) and also accidentally knitting the second one in the wrong size.  As for the pattern… I liked the concept a lot but found the pattern really hard to work with, and kind of strangely written and/or executed.   A few things I disliked about it:

• The foot is knit flat, sole first, then the top attached later (while knitting, one row at a time).  Some might find this a better alternative to knitting two pieces and seaming them, but I found it more fiddly.  In any case, knitting in the round is easier, simpler, and looks nicer.  And even that can be made easier.
• I don’t like garter stitch.  It serves no purpose here.
• The toes and petals (toes especially) are too pointy after decreasing down to one stitch.  And tying it off with just one stitch makes a weird little knot that’s hard to conceal.

And my improvements:

• If you’re doing stockinette in the round with few to no increases/decreases, especially with a very low stitch count, double knitting is the answer.  Much less fiddly than circular knitting on DPNs.
• Garter stitch is out the window.  In some garments it serves a purpose but not here.
• Toes and petals stop when there’s three stitches left (or six for the toes - three for each side).

So here’s what I did.  Knit as directed for the heel, but for the row when you switch to MC, do this:  K1, CO1 using backwards loop.  Repeat across.  Then start your double knitting - K1, Sl1 purlwise.  Do this for the specified number of rows.  If you haven’t tried double knitting before it is amazing.  Just don’t mess up the K1, Sl1pw.  It *will* wreck things, unless you want to attach the two sides together - with a sock, you definitely don’t.

When you get to the decrease rows, you can rearrange your stitches for circular knitting, but I didn’t.  It’s absolutely possible to decrease while double knitting, you just have to prepare for it one row in advance to get two stitches from the same side next to each other. It’s basically like doing a 1×1 cable without a cable needle.

I decreased one stitch in from the side, so it went like this:  K1, K second stitch from needle but do not drop it.

Bring yarn to front, insert purlwise into first stitch on the needle, and slip both off.

Do this three stitches from the end of the row too. You should find that on both sides of your knitting, there will be a spot one stitch in from the side where there are two stitches from the same side next to each other (see the 3rd/4th and 5th/6th stitches from the right):

Then on the next row, decrease at those two stitches, or slip them together when they’re on the back side.

Decrease every other row at first and then every row for the last ~3 rows (depending on what size you’re making) until 6 stitches remain, 3 from each side.  Slip them onto alternate needles (so that each side is on its own needle now).  Kitchener them together.  Or, if you’re adventurous, do this when you have 10 stitches left, but decrease while grafting (my method:  same as ordinary kitchener stitch, just take the first two and last two stitches together.  It doesn’t always slope the right way, but I don’t have the in-brain 3D modeling capabilities to figure that out right now).

For the petals I did them mostly as written, but stopped with 3 stitches remaining.  Draw the yarn through all three and then through itself, and weave in.  Done!