DUH!!!

I had a huge "DUH!" moment today.

I like making my socks with "Star Toes" because you finish it off (cuff down) with running the yarn through the last six to eight stitches and there's no grafting. But I've been lamenting the fact that the toes of both finished socks have visible lines of decreases going in the same direction.

Just as an example (with an imaginary 28-stitch sock), here's how I've been doing my decreases:

Rnd 1: *K5, k2tog, rep from *. 24 sts rem.
Rnd 2: Knit plain
Rnd 3: *K4, k2tog, rep from *. 20 sts rem.
Rnd 4: rep rnd 2.

And so on.

Today it dawned on me that if I reverse the order of knits and decreases, I'd have a line that went the other way. For example:

Rnd 1: *K2tog, K5, rep from *. 24 sts rem.
Rnd 2: Knit plain
Rnd 3: *K2tog, K4 rep from *. 20 sts rem.
Rnd 4: rep rnd 2.

I'm sure every other knitter on the planet already knew this, but for me it was quite an epiphany. I'm so excited that I decided to start working on the tweedy green socks again.

My love affair with a German

I'm in love! The new love of my life is German, and, well, a little twisted. But in a good way!

I'm talking about the "Twisted German Cast-On". With some help from the internet, I recently taught myself this method of casting on for cuff-down socks and I love it. It's stretchy but not floppy, and it looks fantastic.

Here's a very helpful how-to video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BfFadEumBak

And here's the cuff of a sock I'm working on, having used this cast-on: