I love the fancy eye of the partridge stitch ... very stylish in green.

I wonder if the color/shade of the yarn makes seeing things harder ... some projects I've done over the years just seem to be harder to see ... the navy blue vest on size two needles was a killer, even socks ( in "denim") on 0 seem easier to see.

Have you blocked your socks? That could help with fit I think.

Have a great weekend!

It may well be a color problem. The cataract in my left eye is giving me more trouble every year and is approaching the point at which I won't be able to pass the driving test. The other one is there but not nearly as "ripe." I've been told that cataracts change color perception, too.

What happens it that when the strands overlap while doing the stitch, I can't tell one from another, and the harder I peer, the more it turns into a lumpy green blur. The next two pairs will be red (with which I was successful before) and medium-denim-blue (have no clue what that effect will be.

I'm thinking of practicing with white cotton twine or something that has no fuzz and that I can lay flat on a contrasting background, and then work back down to yarn, until my hands have the movements.

Or just sewing the toes closed.

Blocking socks? No, I haven't. When I wash them I squeeze out the water gently and then lay them flat on a towel, wrap the sides over them, roll it up and press--then lay them out flat. The green ones haven't touched water yet (because I'm so eager to try a new pair that I wear them several hours before washing them.)

I have a lot to learn.

If I remember right, my first pair of socks I gave up on Kitchener stitch halfway through and just sewed up the toes with an overcast stitch. I mean, what the heck, it's all the same yarn.

My mother made me two pairs of socks something like 45 years ago. But she never taught me to make socks. When I finally decided I had to learn, I had two very battered socks to work with...and I found Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book _Knitting Rules_. Between the basic sock direction there, and my mother's socks, and the internet, I figured out how to make the first pair. As near as I can tell (the light green socks, that may have been knit toe-up, were in the worse shape--moths or something else had made holes all over them. (The toe is closed with a tiny square that looks almost woven, but of the same yarn--it's hard to really see what it is, given the damage. The blue socks, certainly knitted top-down as the toes were perfectly "Kitchenered" , had one still whole and one with a hole in the toe.

So I was determined to try Kitchener, since my mother had done it (and the whole sock-making thing, besides needing socks, was in part a "I'm free of maternal restrictions" statement of intent.) But having found it much harder than it should (in theory, looking at the diagrams) be, perhaps due to my ageing vision or the fuzziness that quickly develops in this yarn--I can't SEE where the strands are--I'm going to go with another method just because I don't want to spend one to two hours per sock in total frustration.

Toe up socks.Really. I won't do them any other way. No grafting, no heel flaps, try on as you go. There are some great tutorials and convertors to change a top down pattern to toe up.

To each his/her own approach to knitting. Mileage varies. I suspect a lot depends on the shape of the feet that will be in the socks (and some on how one was taught.) Schurch & Parrott's _The Sock Knitter's Handbook_ has a section comparing the amount of instep ease in different styles of sock...in color, so it's easy to see. Heel flap socks offer the most for those with high insteps. Like me.

Trying on as you go is available in either direction.

Maybe it would be easier to learn how to graft stitches together (Kitchener stitch) if you tried with contrast yarn. Do a few rows of stocking(ette) stitch with an even number of stitches, then divide between the 2 needles, thread a darning-needle with a length of contrast yarn and have at it! Once you know what you're doing, try with the same yarn. And after that, it will stop being difficult and daunting and become second nature.

The green socks rock anyway! Although the thought of any kind of sock makes me shudder just now - it's far, far too hot to wear socks today!

They are wonderful! Wearable art.