My, What Big Feet You Have!

Admittedly, I am a 'selfish' knitter, much like my sewing & costuming. I usually make things only for myself because they take so much time.

The only exception is making things for my DH. (However, I don't usually sew anything for him, because he already knows how to sew!) Lest you think I'm very selfish, I *love* to bake and cook for other people and give those away as gifts, so it balances out.

But, I did ask him if he wanted anything knitted because I'm always making socks for myself. He did admit that he wanted toe-less/heel-less socks for use during his classes at the Circus School (DH does aerobatic stuff on silk, rope, etc. No trapeze work because he's too big for the actual trapeze bars.) Plus apparently, socks are *very* big at the Circus School and he wants to show off his own pair.

I figure, how hard can it be? (I know, famous last words). After all, it's merely a sock where you don't knit the toe and don't knit the heel. So I decided to wing the pattern based off Cat Bordhi's Spiraling Corialis socks (of which I've made several pairs, so I'm familiar with the pattern). I have plenty of left over sock yarn. He okay'd the Smooshy Dreams in Color purple yarn, so I'm using that for him. Plus, I already had noted the gauge & needle choice for my last pair of socks using this yarn.

Actually, it's turned out to be a relatively easy pattern to wing.

First, I got his master numbers, then I started off the pattern as follows.

1) I started his socks right after the "finished" toe portion. Cat's handy-dandy charts told me I should have 66 stitches after the toe, so I cast on 66 stitches on a magic loop and divided them evenly into 33 stitches for sole & instep.

2) I knit up the expansion rows to fit over the arch of his foot, and ended the arch expansion rows to the prescribed number of stitches (98)

3) Just before the start of the heel turn, I knit several ribbing rows on the heel, then bound off the sole stitches, but continued knitting several rows (ribbed) on the instep.

4) Then I cast on the same number of 'sole' stitches that I had bound off and began knitting in the round again.

5) I worked up the leg.

It's worked out relatively well so far on the first sock (normally, I knit 2-toe-up at a time, but I wanted to make sure I could test the pattern first!)

The pattern is working out well, except for the fact that DH has:
a) very large feet (size 13s) so it took forever to get the foot completed, even without the toes

b) his ankle tapers very quickly so I had to decrease a few rounds then rib in order to make sure that the cuff of the sock doesn't flop over.

I've pretty much finished the first sock, and started on the second sock. Although the Smooshy Dreams in Color is a HUGE skein (450 yards), I was a bit concerned that I don't have quite enough for two socks because of aforementioned large feet. So I stopped knitting the 1st one (which he wants another inch on the cuff) and cast on the second sock at the other end of the cake just to make sure I can even up the length of the cuffs before finishing both off on 2 circs.