Sock One-up-man-ship

I am confident that if you asked just about anyone who knows me in person if I am courteous and polite, the overwhelming response would be yes.  However, I have noticed that my courtesy does not extend to my handknits.  They can be quite rude, as evidenced by this conversation I heard while photographing these two single socks.  (The blue-green sock is knit from Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Nodding Violets, and the red-blue sock is knit in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Champlain Sunset).

Blue Sock: She’s knitting us as practice socks to correct for “protocol drift” that was leading to socks not fitting her as well as she liked. Since I am the second practice sock, I am better than you.
Red Sock: Well, while your 3/8-inch longer heel flap fits her better, in the Eye of the Patridge pattern, there were so many rows that your gusset is a bit, shall we say “baggy.” My gussets are sleek without being stretched too far.  And I fit just fine, so there!
Blue Sock: I fit just fine too, you plain stockinette hussy!
Red Sock: Like 3×1 ribbing in the cuff is such a big deal!

Well, that’s enough of that. On both socks, I finally, finally got the toe grafting done to my satisfaction.

I had been using the directions from Knitty, but I kept getting a bump at the beginning, and I had a very hard time getting the stitches tightened up properly. I decided I needed different directions, as I was clearly missing something. I tried Sally Melville’s directions from her book, The Purl Stitch, and that worked like a charm. I have no idea how I kept from getting a bump at the beginning, but she recommends putting the sock on your hand like a puppet to tighten all the grafting, which for me was pure genius. I was a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that myself.

Both these socks fit fine, as I finally managed to knit the foot long enough, but I do think that if I want to do an EoP heel flap, I should use a larger needle to try to keep the row number down. I also knit both of these with a larger needle for the leg than for the foot due to my “cankles.” I have a question though for all of you. I noticed  that in stockinette stitch the CTH gives me little uniform Vs, but on the STR, one side of the stitch is much more vertical. See–

Why is that? I’ve noticed this in other people’s knitting too. It seems to be yarn based not knitter based. I do love both these yarns though, which is good as I have more of each in my stash.

Now I need to knit the second sock for each of these, which is not filling me with joyous anticipation–in addition to being rude, they are a little dull. You see, I’ve bought Cookie A’s Flicker pattern and Knottygnome’s Coin Toss pattern. I have Dream in Color Smooshy in Gothic Rose and Blue Lagoon. The only reason I haven’t cast on for these is that I can’t decide which sock to knit in which color.

Feel free to voice an opinion.