Success!
Okay, so I just frogged my Koigu sock a couple of rows and wore it, and it went up my, um, shapely calves just fine. Google to the rescue: a search for "stretchy cast off" made me realise with a relief that I was not the only one to have this problem with toe-up socks. So here’s what happened. I found this list of stretchy cast off techniques which mentioned a Russian cast off (scroll down to post # 4 by Spinerella). I tried it:
Basically, purl the first two stitches to be bound off together.
Then loosen the resultant purl stitch and put it back on the left needle. Then purl it together with the next stitch. Keep doing this till all stitches are cast off. Voila! All stitches have been cast off, with a neat, yet stretchy cast off. The edge looks loose and curvy but fits snugly over the leg.
And as you can see, it fits nicely and snugly, with no problems whatsoever. I am in love, and cannot wait to cast on for sock number two.
Nice sock! All the best for the second one!
Thank you for the strechy cast off techniques – just what I needed for my cabled gloves project some time ago (I managed to go around the problem somehow but now I’ll have the right solution).
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your second sock, don’t like to knit in pairs myself!… ^^
Beautiful sock!
The sock looks great and what a delicate color.
I also get irritated with the “preview” aspect of typepad blogging but I figured out when I changed my theme that if my center column has a fixed width then preview is fairly close, but if I have a fluid width then it isn’t.
thanks, all! bev, i’m seriously looking at wordpress, but while my subscription is active with typepad maybe i should look at another layout instead. thanks for that tip. and joanna, second sock has been cast on! more updates tomorrow.
Yay! The Russian cast off is indeed stretchy. I must admit that it’s not my favorite to look at when unstretched, but when the object at hand is being worn, then no matter, I think.