No Sock Here

So I had started my first toe-up socks using my Koigu KPPM. Just to make it more interesting, I was making up my own pattern - I wanted to use a figure 8 toe (like from the Knitty tutorial), a short-row heel and beaded rib (from Sensational Knitted Socks) and a picot bind-off (from all sorts of places). My problem was that I can't find anywhere that will tell me how many stitches to cast on to get to a given number of stitches. The tutorial showed starting with 8 stitches per needle to get to a 48 stitch sock. But SKS said, with my gauge, foot-size, and needle size, I needed a 70 stitch sock. I sort of winged it, starting with 12 stitches. It looked fine when I got up to 70 stitches (and it was lots of fun, and not all that hard). I did 6 rows of the pattern, and put it on my toes to take a picture -- and it was huge!!! So I frogged the whole thing, which was dumb -- since I had a giant swatch, I should have at least used it to double-check my gauge!

So I guess the problem wasn't with the cast-on, but with the number of stitches. 70 does seem like a lot, doesn't it? In my swatch, I was getting 7 and a half stiches per inch on size 2 needles. My feet are size 9s, and about 9 and a half inches around at the widest points (both the ball of my foot and my instep).

9.5 x 7.5 = 71.25

Huh. 70 stitches should have been a little snug. How come I had sock flopping all around the ball of my foot? Maybe I frogged too soon. Or maybe I was knitting looser than my gauge. I guess I should have measured before I frogged....

I've also begun a pair of Cable Footies for a friend. I'm going back to them - they can flop around all the want!