This pattern is easy to read once you get going. Ella Rae Lace Merino makes a lighter weight pair of socks than typical fingering weight yarns. I tend to think of this yarn more as a light fingering than a fingering weight yarn.

Summary

• US 1.5 needles for cast on, US 1.0 for leg.

• Stitch gauge is 9 1/2 / inch, which is to be expected since I’m using a US 1 for the leg and a fine gauge yarn.

• Row gauge is 29 rows / 2 inches or 14-15 rows / inch.

• Decrease heel flap stitches from 36 to 32. Use the standard heel stitch for the heel flap instead of stockinette. Heel fits fine but foot going to be too tight, so I added sole increases to get a better foot fit.

• used 414 yards total.

Journal

2012-03-31: Cast on 64 using German twisted cast on with US 1.5 needles. US 1 will be used to knit the ribbed cuff.

2012-04-01: I decided that the 64 stitch cast on created too small of a leg at my gauge. I ripped that out and knitted the 72 stitch cuff. I have completed the cuff and 2 pattern repeats on the left sock. Tried on sock and it looks like this will fit.

2012-04-08: Completed 2 pattern repeats on the right sock. Leg length is 4.0” instead of the specified 4.25” at this point.

2012-04-09: Completed 2 shifting pattern repeats on right leg. Leg measures 6 1/8” instead of the 7” specified by the pattern.

2012-04-11: Completed 2 shifting pattern repeats on the left leg.

2012-04-12: Completed the left heel flap knitting in an extra strand of yarn to beef up the heel. This made the heel flap to big so I ripped it out. I’m going to decrease the number of heel stitches to 32 and do a standard heel stitch on the heel flap instead of the simple stockinette specified by the pattern. Completed standard heel stitch heel flap and started gusset, completing another cable pattern repeat.

2012-04-13: Completed left sock gusset. Completed right sock heel flap and started gusset.

2012-04-14: Completed right sock gusset. Completed traveling portion of cable on both socks.

2012-04-15: Completed left sock foot and toe. Completion required completion of pattern repeat started on gusset + one more pattern repeat for a total of 8 pattern repeats. I modified the toe to account for my gauge, my stopping point and the number of stitches (76) at the foot stopping point. My toe consists of 30 rows, plus 1 setup row. The setup row is per the pattern. Toe is as follows, starting from the sole, sole: decrease 2, instep knit; Knit 2 more rounds; Repeat decrease round, knit round pair 10 times, followed by 4 decrease rounds, ending with 16 stitches, 8 per needle.

Completed second sock.