Metropole in a Sidewind: halfway there

This is where I have had to revert to the original Metropole design! The Sidewinder pattern includes toe increases as part of the leg section - so you end up with a double-length toe which folds from front to back, which you then graft to the underside of the foot. Weird , huh?!

This wasn't a safe strategy for me, given my gauge issues. I need to be able to adjust the length of the toe once the sock can be tried on, so I can make it short and fat or long and pointy according to where it is landing on my daughter's foot. The original Metropole sock has the toe being picked up along the edge of the tube of finished foot, and luckily the Sidewinder pattern includes a clever slipstitch at this edge, to make this easier. Hooray!

The top picture shows the sock as it is being knitted: the toe end is towards the upper left of the picture. My finger is holding down one side of the heel, and the stitchmarker at the top marks the centre of the heel (still to be worked) on the other side of the foot.

So instead of having a lot of fiddly increases and stitchmarker placement issues, this was the simplest section of the sock to knit. After inserting a small section of short rows at the upper leg, to provide a bit of leg-shaping (as per the Sidewinder pattern), I worked the whole piece in Zick-Zack Muster pattern, with a 7-stitch stocking stitch selvedge at the toe end of the row. Lovely lunch-break relaxation knitting!

This view is the sock as it will appear on the foot. So the bottom of the picture is the selvedge where the toe will go, and the top is where the ribbing will go.

Got it?!