lostpurl

Sock on complete. A few changes. Ignore anything I said about the picot hem. I was all wet. It was so tight I couldn't get the cuff over my foot. I frogged the top and did a ribbing top. I will try the picot hem again, but I will do the provisional cast on. I can see my normal cast on was too tight. There was no stretch at all. And I think I will not go down a needle size. Speaking of which. I usually go down a needle size to do the heel and foot. In this case I should have added more stitches. The pattern calls for a band heel Which I had never done before. It is quite cool. If you don't like gusset decreases, the band heel is for you. But I have a feeling it was a bit tighter then my usual heel. The area over the arch is tight and the pattern is stretched out. On the second sock I will do my normal heel and see if that makes a difference. To compensate for the smaller needle I added a purl between the leaf pattern and one on each side. I carried the purls down to the toe. Looks nice I think, well you can't see it in the picture. But I like it. It has been really hard to get a clear picture of this yarn and pattern. Sorry for the fuzzy stuff.
Oh I did a round toe, which fits me so well. Socks without feet in them look weird, just a stray thought ;)

Regia sock yarn from Elann.com. I decided that the picot hem would be fun to try. I practiced a bit with some scrap yarn then cast on. I am a fairly tight knitter. After I finished the picot bit I moved on the the leg part. I was almost to the heel flap when I decided to try the thing on. The picot hem was so tight I couldn't get it over my instep. Just for a moment I thought I might be able to block it to the right measurement. In the end I frogged the whole thing and started over again.
As per online instructions I had made the picot part with a smaller needle, so it wouldn't be bulky. Damn the bulk, I went up a needle size and then when the bind off came I stretched between each bind off set. While not as stretchy as ribbing, it now fits.
I did this flat, I found doing it in the round so fiddly as to be mind ripping. Feel free to work in the round though
Picot Hem:
Cast on the number of stitches you need for your cuff. It has to be an even number of stitches.

Knit 3 rows, this decided how high the hem is (since I knitted flat, it was SS stitch)

Yo, K 2tog across

Knit 3 rows

Now the tricky part. You need to pick up one of the cast on row stitches and bind it off with one of the live stitches. Most directions tell you to use a provencal cast on. I am just to lazy. I ran a smaller circular needle through the cast on stitches. I lifted up a cast on stitch and placed it on the left needle then did the K2 tog. It worked fine for me. But I do everything backwards. Let me know if I left anything out. Or was more then normally confusing.
It is a pretty edge for a pair of socks.
After you finish the bind off you will notice one side is purled one side is knit. I liked the purl side, it looks like a nice divider between the hem and the beginning of the pattern. So pick the side you like the best. After a few rows of pattern work, I went back and sewed up the edge with the cast on yarn end.

An elegant yet simple pattern to work. Providing you can count to eight. The first set of stitches is one less each row. My brain being a bit dim, kept reducing the amount of stitches between each group. Resulting in massive frogging on the first sock. The second sock, I took my brain in hand and managed to work the pattern correctly. The stitch pattern directs you to use the heel and toe of your choice. I used the star toe on one sock and the swirl toe on the other. It would have been nice if I had managed to swirl in the same direction as the rest of the sock :D Next time I will do better as I now understand the mechanics of the swirl toe. Cobwebs in the brain
Enjoy