As you may have seen, a few of us are attempting to knit the Tootsie Toasters — aka slipper socks — loosely detailed in that previously-posted, vintage, typewritten pattern from my mother’s archives. I took a first pass at it Saturday night, going with the large dimensions, and made a short-sighted decision about how to adjust for the incorrect stitch count. I’d added to the purl count instead of increasing the sl.1/k1 repeat, but Jo set me straight yesterday. I also determined, in the process, that the large would be too big for my size 10s anyway, so I started over yesterday afternoon with a CO of 29 stitches but then knit the pattern rows until I had just shy of 8 inches. Pictured above is how far I got: ready to cinch that last row of stitches together for the toe and then seam it up. However, I’m not at all happy with how the edges of the toe portion look, where I was knitting or purling two together at the beginning of each row. (What’s the more elegant way to do this?) And in the meantime, Meg finished multiple versions and came up with the brilliant notion to do the toe cap in the round. (I’ll post details soon.) So I think I’ll rip back to the start of the ribbing and try that. Meg also did a 3-needle bind-off for the heel, which is a technique I’ve been looking for an excuse to learn.

If you’re giving this a go, let’s hear about it in the comments.

(Update Feb ’12: Meg has posted her revisions of this pattern as a free PDF on Ravelry. To see all the Tootsie Toaster-related posts, click here.)