Thank you Wendy, Marney, Shetha, Lisa and Melissa for your suggestions on the stocking pattern! Turns out that yes, there was a bad bad typo in there, and the 17 stitches for the instep should've been 27. I did that, and it worked out just fine. It's not blocked and I still have ends to weave in, but check out my friend's big-ass stocking! If her husband gives her a woman-leg for Christmas, it'll fit in the stocking!



Now it's happily blocking in the livingroom. Ryan wanted to add something to the pic to show the scale, so that white rectangle is a standard-sized credit card (upside-down, so don't bother trying to get the numbers!)




Now I have to make her husband's, which will be the same except green at the top, heel and toe.

ARRRRGH!

Work hell has abated for a while, after my 72-billable-hours week. Now I am in Xmas stocking hell. Someone help meeee!!!

I am using this pattern, courtesy of the ever-fabulous Wendy via my comments. I'm not doing the applique stuff - just using it as a basic framework, and I'm doing it in stripes. I figured working flat would be easier for me than in the round, since I'm not a sock maker and don't feel like figuring out everything when I'm doing a project for someone else under a slight time crunch.

So, I'm merrily knitting along and have a nice looooong piece of knitting, when I get to the Divide for Heel section. Let me call your attention to the previous direction, and then to the Divide for Heel direction:

Dec Row: K1, SSK, k to last 3 sts, k2 tog, k1—59 sts. Cont to work in St st, rep dec row every 10th row 3 times—53 sts rem. Work even until piece measures 13-1/2" from turning ridge, ending with a WS row.

Divide for Heel
(RS) K13 and sl to holder for right half of heel; k17 and sl to 2nd holder for instep; k13 for left half of heel. Work on these 13 sts only.

OK, so if I have 53 stitches remaining (which I do), and I slip 13 of those to a holder, then another 17, that's 30 stitches slipped to a holder - which leaves 23 stitches remaining. But you'll see that the last piece of that says I have 13 stitches and I'm working on those 13 stitches only.

Um, what happened to the other 10 stitches? Yes, that's right - they're SITTING ON MY NEEDLE MAKING ME CRAZY! Am I crazy? Am I reading something wrong? Is there an egregious error in this pattern? How do I fix it? (Assuming the answer is not that I am crazy)

Heeeeeelp meeeeee wonderful knitting-blog-readers!!!

Merlin is doing much better. He's a good patient, easily taking medicine once it's ground up into his food. And he's good-natured, so that makes things easier, too. I feel bad that when we are sleeping or not at home, we have to keep him shut up in Ryan's office. He hasn't peed anywhere but the litter box since Thursday night, but we're not taking any chances until he's much better. And can have a bath. He's kinda icky right now.

I'm icky, too. I was at work from 2pm until 2am on Saturday. That made Sunday a blurry day. Now I'm back and waiting for a job to route to me so I can go. Hope it happens before 7. I also just found out I need to be back here at 8am for a conference call.

I'm tired of work.