And the Mystery Project was...

... Sariebeth's Nutkin socks! I was worried that they might not fit since they're the first socks I've completed without ever having the intended recipient try them on, but it seems they were a success. I also didn't expect them to do the candy stripe thing, but then the purchase of that particular yarn never went as expected anyway.

Now the pattern itself was fun and simple, but I had a random mental block when it came to the directions for the short row heels with yarn overs. I found short row heels with wraps much easier, but I also followed a tutorial with pictures. So, when I hit the wall with the textual description of the yarn over version, I got my brain back in gear by using the picture tutorial here. The part that tripped me up was knowing what was intended by "On the right/knit side, yarn over and knit to the first yo and K3Tog (knit 2 yarn overs and knit stitch in the following stitch together). Turn." As you can see in the tutorial, once you have the yarn overs on the needles the stitches tend to group up so you see them in little pairs. Now, when you get to that particular step you have a pattern of stitches that looks something like this on the left needle:

X  XX  XX  XX  X  XX

For some reason I had a hard time deciding which part of that pair that was separated to the right counted as a stitch and which counted as a yarn over for knitting "to the first yo". The trick for me was to remember that I had to get it to look something like this each time before the K3Tog or SSSP:

X  XX  XX  XX  X  X

So you actually knit part of that stranded pair as a stitch before starting that step. Then the K3Tog or SSSP includes only the right stitch of the pair farthest to the right and the two single stitches a the end of the needle. Obviously the tutorial is clearer than my little text diagrams so I didn't bother taking additional pictures to explain my particular brain fart. But, now that I have that little diagram in my head I don't have problems remembering how to do this version of a short row heel.

Now I just have to remember to compare the two short row heel techniques sometime to try to decide which I like better or if they're fairly equivalent. After a fair bit of practice with the SSSPs I think they may be easier for me to pick up than the multiple wraps, but I also haven't tried those lately and I've had more knitting practice than I had when I first learned the wrapped short row heels.

So there you go, a link to the helpful tutorial as promised and the first reveal of a Mystery Project. Now that sariebeth has a pair of socks with short row heels she can start weighing in on how they fit versus the other heel styles, too.