People can't seem to decide or agree what this pattern looks like. To my knit group it reminded them of ancient greek or roman tile-work. My sister, on the other hand, pointed out some one armed turtles swimming past each other, or some ghosts waving. Another suggestion was owls.
The blue yarn is Holiday Yarns Mittenacht, in flocksock. It's a beautiful yarn-the same I used for stage 2 of the Tour de sock. Nice and soft and squishy, plus the colors are pretty too. The white is knitpicks stroll glimmer.
I tried several new things on these socks. I decided, since I had extra beads left over after stage 3, to use some of those beads here, just on the cuff in the small boxes. I think next time I'll prestring the beads, so that I can get them fully centered in the boxes. I switched from beads to purling when I moved from cuff to foot-I think that worked well. Another new(ish) thing was the heel-flap stitch. I pulled the bird's eye stitch from the Tour-de-sock stage 1, which is very similar to my standard heel flap stitch, but with an off by one error. I decided to try it again, and I think it looks nice, though I do miss being more easily able to count the number of rows I've worked, as with the normal heel flap where the slipped stitches line up. I decided to turn the heel with the bottom reinforced, and then do the decreases on either side of the bottom of the heel, such that when the decreases meet, then I have the correct number of stitches for the foot. I only decreased in the blue rows, and I probably should have decreased every other row (in both blue and white rows), as the decreases go really far down into the foot. I also could have made a shorter heel flap, which would also have helped with that. The bottom of the foot between the decreases is also in the bird's eye stitch, which ends up looking like stripes. I actually really like that effect-you have to look really closely to see that out of every four stitches one of them is the wrong color for those stripes. I also really like carrying the reinforced bit a bit further into the heel than simply stopping right after turning the heel. I find that on socks I've worn, if the bottom wears near the heel, it is invariably just a bit past where the turning of the heel stops.
Overall I'm very happy with these socks, and I will have to try some of these things again. Particularly the beads. I still have loads of beads left...
