Binding Off a Toe-Up Sock

I finished my sock the other night! I was so excited. I tried it on (still on the circular needles) and it fit great.

I don't have the pattern in front of me, but I believe the last instruction is to "BO loosely." Having never done a toe-up sock (except the practice baby sock in the front of the Cat Bordhi book), I went ahead and did a normal basic bind off as loosely as possible. I cut my yarn and tried to put the sock on my foot ... it wouldn't hardly go over the ball of my foot and it certainly wasn't going to stretch far enough to go around my heel!

AHHH!!!!

I'm sure those of you who have done toe-up socks in the past know better, but I figured I'd post this as a warning to those who haven't done it before. (C'mon I can't be the only one who's made this mistake... right? I hope...?)

Thankfully I was able to undo my bind off. Unfortunately I'd already cut the yarn somewhat short, so I'm going to rip back a few rows of the ribbing and rejoin it to the skein so I can do a different bind off.

Here's a few options I've found that create a stretchy bind off perfect for toe-up socks:

• Do the basic bind off but use a needle 2 sizes larger than the one you knit with. (I've read mixed reviews about this -- some people who knit tight find that this still isn't stretchy enough.)
• Do a crochet bind off and chain 1 after every 2 stitches you BO.
• Use the Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind off. This is the one I think I'm going to try. There's directions for doing it (along with lots of good pictures) at the very bottom of this page.

Does anyone else have some bind off techniques to add to this list?

Hopefully I've saved someone the pain/disappointment I went through with my sock this week!

Jan/Feb Sock Progress!

How's everyone coming along on the new sock project? Here's mine so far:

This is my first time using Schaefer Anne, though I've used their Heather and Lola yarns in the past. I'm absolutely loving the Anne -- it's so soft and this colorway is so beautiful! I think this may be my new favorite yarn.

I'm knitting mine one at a time on two circular needles. (I'd intended to do magic loop, but discovered I didn't have a long enough circular needle in the size I needed to get gauge.) They're working up really nicely that way though.

When I took the photo above I had 2 or 3 more repeats of the lace pattern to do. I'm down to needing to finish 1 more lace repeat and then do the ribbing and I'll be done with the first sock. I'm really surprised how fast these knit up!