Socking it to me

The sock gremlins are playing with me.

My favorite sock pattern is Nancy Lindberg's Knit to Fit Socks. I've internalized the pattern, all but the beginning of the heel turn. For some reason, even though I've turned dozens of heels, I just can't remember how to start. Knit 2 stitches past the center of the heel flap? 3 stitches? Do you do the ssk, K1 on that first row? I'm pretty sure the second row is P5, P2tog, P1, turn ...

I can noodle through the process and be convinced what I've figured out makes sense, and then I end up with a heel that's off center by 3 or 4 stitches. All of this would be solved if I could find the pattern, but the pattern is playing hide-and-seek with me.

I'd searched for the pattern -- or course it wasn't in my pattern file -- for weeks this fall, and then I gave up. A couple weeks later, it turned up, and I put it "somewhere safe" so I could find it when I needed it. I needed it today. I couldn't find it.

I went out with my sister today to knit at a coffeeshop, and of course I finished my heel flap and needed to turn the heel. I tried twice, and twice came out with a very wonky, off-center heel cup. Luckily, then it was time to go home. But the yarn in the heel looks pretty shredded, since I've tinked it twice with sharp size 0s.

It's weird that I can do a Kitchener in the dark with both hands tied behind my back while suspended upside down in a sealed vat of brine while being beset by shrimp and having to listen to Barry Manilow, but I can't turn a @#$%^&*(!!#@!! heel without the dad-gum pattern!

If anyone has the Nancy Lindberg pattern, please leave a comment with the first two rows of the heel turn. Meanwhile, I'm off to the brine tank.