Memorandum Monday

"So,"  they said. "this list you were going to make: the one with the new things to try. If all it has is knit a sock using this pattern, turn a heel using that..well, that's not exactly creative and life changing, is it?"

"Ah," I said. "It is and it isn't. This time last year, when I had just started knitting socks, I would never have been able to work out the maths to let me adapt a pattern for a new kind of heel so that it would fit my smaller kind of foot. But I can do that now; and if you'll stop standing between me and my sofa, I'm about to do it right this minute. Because having socks which fit CAN be life changing."

So they left me to it.

The print is of St Patrick's heartland round Downpatrick

 And I knitted my Balbriggan heel - for the first time - and I'm very pleased with it. It was difficult at the beginning (because the instructions in Sock Architecture turned out to be misleading; but quick and easy in the end, after a google led me to this lovely article  (thank you Archives and Old Lace), which has everything a sock knitter needs to know about Balbriggan and its heel pattern. If you aren't a sock knitter (though, if you knit at all, you don't know what you are missing), I'll just quickly tell you that Balbriggan is a seaside town north of Dublin and once upon a time it was famous for its Sock Mill. So, an Irish Balbriggan heel seemed like a good thing to add to my Sock Of the Month for March. The actual sock itself is in Broken Seed stitch, which also sounded right for the time of year.

It's hard to get a photo because it leaves a small, neat turn: you'll have to trust me that I took the instructions, learned something new, and now have a sock fit for Queen Victoria (who wouldn't wear anything else, they say). Only the one: I have another one to do. I'm not sure how she'd feel about socks out of leftovers either. If you've been following along, you might already have noticed that the colours have appeared on my socks before: of course I was going to use green; but I also added in oddments of  lovely Arne and Carlos variegated yarn and now I have room in my wool drawer for something new.

Which brings us back to where we started. This weekend, for the first time, I knitted a Balbriggan heel: did you try something you'd never tried before? learn something new? You could write a post about it. Make a memorandum, on Monday.

Last week  Gail, Becky, Deb, Helena, Eileen, Mitra, Mary-Lou, Maggie, Mardi, Beverly, Jane, Ladkyis, Cheri, Karen and Alison all shared what was new. We had fog, flooring and family trees, a birthday, lots more besides. Give 'em a wave! Have a good week everyone.