I'm no Doogie (not even a felting expert), but much is forgiven when a knit object is felted. I go for winging it.

I had the same question when I knit my first Fuzzy Foot! What I did was only pick up the stitches in the original 12 side....um....bars (?) as though there were no extra stitches. The extra stitches weren't there until I turned the heel anyway. Maybe I did it wrong and there was a teeny hole but I figure what the heck! The hole will disappear when I felt them anyway, right? I moved on to my second sock/slipper and did the same thing on it too. I'm going to felt them tonight. We'll see what happens.

I met him in real life - tall fella - but then, I'm a shrimp.

I would continue...you'll never see the extras once you felt and since they'll shrink size shouldn't be a problem.

The Doogie in me says if your more-than-12 stitches turns into 35, do the Fuzzyfootectomy ~with (champagne) anesthesia, of course. If your more-than-12 stitches ends up at 15-20, I say continue with the procedure. Take two glasses of wine and call me in the morning.

All you have to do is knit 2 together where you picked up too many. So, if you picked up 15 instead of 12, just knit 2 together 3 times in that section of the fuzzy foot on the next row. No problem!

That happened to me too when I made these a while back. I forget what was wrong (so helpful!) But I do remember I had to frog back. : (

Damn, second FF already? Somebody starts a Fuzzy Feetalong and 5 seconds later everyone is done and I just casted on! Maybe having 10 or so items on needles at once is not such a great idea.

How many sts. did you actually get on a flap? I'm with Reenie, a few extra gusset decreases won't hurt. I picked up 14 sts. on my flaps and they turned out fine. I just kept repeating the gusset decreases until I had 11 stitches on each needle. Then I knit to my desired foot length. It meant there were fewer rows between the end of the gussets and the toe shaping, but now that they're felted, no one, except blog readers will ever know.

Since your working with big wool, you can count how many rows there are along that heel flap. Then you can work out how often to pick up to get 12.

for example, if you have 18 rows, then pick up in 2, skip 1, all the way and you should end up with 12.

Sometimes, to avoid a hole at the corner there, people pick up an extra one between those picked up stitches and the ones you've been ignoring while you knit the heel flap. You then decrease that extra one away in the next round. for something felted this might not be necessary.

I vote for the decreasing and felting. That is my favorite thing about felted projects - it all comes out in the wash. (sorry for the corny pun)

And you don't even have to weave in the ends, just felt and snip them!

Happens with socks a lot. Sometimes on purpose.
If it isn't too many extra stitches, i'd add a few extra decrease rows intot he mix when shaping the gusset.

Otherwise if you have to rip back, ripping to just before you picked up stitches is easier than doing it to most other places.

I haven't started my Fuzzy feet yet, waiting patiently for the knitting geniuses to dumb it down for me :-P so I can't help you there..

I was subjected to the movie, "White Castle" which had a cameo appearance by Doogie...very very funny in a totally sophomoric kinda way. (He was out trolling for hookers and drugs! too funny!)

I am not a fan of ripping, especially since this is my first ever heel turn (*bows* thank you thank you I will be signing all ya'lls heels later this evening) and so if I can do some wonky decreasing then I would definitely prefer that.

Looks like I'm going to end up picking up 15 or 16 stitches on each side -- not the 12 recommended by Dr. Fuzzyfeet. Can I work with that?

Oh, and lisa -- I'm still on my first foot!

When this happens to me on socks, it's usually because I spaced out & forgot to start each row of the heel flap by slipping a stitch. If you have twice as many row loops as the recipe calls for, you might have made the same mistake. The easy fix is to pick up & knit every other row loop ... that way, your slipper won't pucker when you felt it.

I think I spaced out and knit too many rows and made the heelflap too long.

So ... do I pick up 12 evenly-spaced out stitches? Or do I pick up my 15/16 stitches and decrease?

Knitting! Crazy! Need wine! Oh wait, it's only 11:30 a.m. And I'm at work. Whoops.

Purl, if you have a high instep, you'll be glad for the extra stitches at the gusset. If not, you can decrease away the extras on your first round (or so) after picking them up. This is the art of socks!

Laurie- You pick up twelve because you knit 24 rows for your heel flap and slipped the first stitch on each knit and purl row. If you have say, 15 stitches to pick up on each side of your flap, this just means you knit 30 rows instead of 24.

Don't worry about it. Pick up the stitches and when you begin decreasing your stitches to shape your gusset, just keep decreasing every other row until you get the original 44 stitches. All this means is that your gusset will be a little bit longer, but since these socks are to be felted, it won't make a difference.

If this makes no sense to you, e-mail me. When I knit my first socks, I ended up with 5 more stitches that I should have. But they turned out fine.

I watch Doogie on a new sitcom, "How I Met Your Mother." He plays one skeevy bachelor - a polar opposite from the Doogie character.

Pick up your 15 and do extra decreases.

I teach socks and mittens at my LYS...I can help. If you have to pick up 14 or 15 stitches...that is fine. Just make sure you do it on the second one too. You should pick up along the loops on the side created where you slipped the stitch. Those couple of stitches shouldn't make a difference with a felted thingy anyway.

Socks are fun! Remember, socks are fun. You should go get some Regia and try to knit a sock. They yarn comes out all fairisle...I love it!!

Looks like everyone beat me to it...just decrease until you have 11 on each dpn. I had the same issue. Only mine was 14 on one side and 13 on the other...I have no idea how that happened.

Of course I also had to rip back my heel turn because I tried to knit it while watching "Amityville" in the dark...but whatever.

That picture is priceless! I'd forgotten how young he looked -- probably because I was only 18 when that show was on.

No advice on FF, but I did finally figure out the error in my coding so that the FF button appears on my site. For you know, support, even if I'm not participating.

Thanks ya'll!! Thank you. These are also the prototype feet (I have learned I must do a "prototype" because I always mess up, so now I call it prototyping instead of f*ing up as if I were a scientist, ya'll know.) so anyway, with the prototype LIKE HELL am I frogging that beauty of a heel. hehehehehe

Speaking of the heel, did anyone but me think it was weird to knit a row, turn, and then not slip a stitch before knitting your next row? So that when you get into the real heel shaping, you're kind of knitting but the working yarn is on the left needle?

Am I making any sense at all?

Oh, and by "did anyone think it was WEIRD..."

I didn't mean the pattern was weird, I mean... was I doing it right? I had never done that before, knit, turn, purl ..but you're purling with the last knit stitch on the left needle. Did I mess that up, too?

Wow. Doogie's rocking some CURLS. That's awesome.

Also, how cool is it that I PICKED UP STITCHES?? I have never done that before! I love this pattern. Love it. And love all 98 stitches. heh heh.

Obviously as ya'll can see it is lunchtime with no bossman and I am talking to myself. sad. very sad.

I thought it was "weird", doing that heel decrease shaping. I kept thinking - "this can't be right!". Then I remembered someone's comment the other day, to just do "exactly as the pattern says". So I did, and after the 3rd try, I realized it was like this funky "short row shaping" I keep reading about. Imagine that, heel's a-flappin, short rows a-shapin!

Not so sad....kinda damn funny actually. It's past my lunchtime and I'm reading you post messages to yourself wondering if I have the courage to knit fuzzy feet since I totally hosed the whole "pick up stitches" on the French Market bag and put it in time out....

One thing about socks...when you just read the pattern...it is VERY confusing. I always tell my students "Don't read anything into it. Just do exactly what the pattern says. If it says turn..turn it...don't think about it." Blind faith.

I am on the just go with the flow and do some extra decreases. My concern, though, (if it were me - and it usually) would be to remember to make the same "mistake" on the second fuzzy foot so that they match...

Fuzzy feet are great first sock experiences. Coz once you wear a handknit sock you'll not like those store bought thangs!

Got on a pair of hk socks right now, in fact ;)

End of the day here (real job) in the great midwest so I'm heading to the yarn shop to give knitting lessons myself!

Don't ya wish it was 4:30 pm where you are.

I picked up 14 on each side, and did an extra decrease and it workedo ut fine. I wouldn't frog for 15/16, although I might for 98...

Breathe - it will all come out in the wash :-)

For those of you who are waiting, I took the photos for the tutorial, but am on a business trip for the rest of the weekend. I pinkie swear I will upload them on Monday.

MBT

About heel shaping, I always think of the line in Blazing Saddles where the new sheriff (Cleavon Little) is holding the gun to his own neck saying "Do what he say, do what he say!" Or, to rip off Nike: just do it. Heel shaping is pretty strange the first few times but it's MAGIC! Love to make socks! Remember to do whatever you did on the first fuzzyfoot on the second one so you can felt them at the same time and they'll come out the same size. But, heck, if one turns out bigger than the other, just felt the bigger one more until they are the same size. Et voila! you have fuzzy and happy feet!

ugh, picking up stitches SUCKS - last night i had to rip back 4 days worth of knitting because of some badly picked up stitches - it was tragic

Laurie, that picture is truly disturbing. I mean, isn't Doogie Howser a little young for you?

Just stopping by to rebuke that "really kind of an idiot" comment, since you are a Grammar Goddess who actually had heard of (and retained knowledge of and used in casual blogging) obscure grammatical terms. Too bad that knitting is more mathematical than grammatical.

I stink at socks. I can knit them, but the whole heel thing seems to work by magic insofar as I can tell -- it's all some weird magical thing that has nothing to do with math and everything about following the ritual outlined in the pattern, then, presto! the right number of stitches appear on my needle and I've no idea how they got there. Come to think of it, that's how much of my life works. Sigh.

I'm amazed at what you manage to post from work. Posting doctored (no pun intended) Doogie Howser photos while on the clock. Stickin' it to the man. Yeah.

I was the same I finished up with 14 on each side and just kept on decreasing until I got down to the right number. It is a very forgiving pattern afterall it all evens out in the felting :-)

One fabulous trick for making two socks exactly the same:

Learn how to knit in the round on two circular needles, instead of using DPNs. There are a bunch of websites out there with instructions and stuff, as well as the book "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles", so I won't try to explain the technique here.

Once you've got that down (and it's really much easier than using DPNs, trust me!), all you have to do is *cast on both socks at once*. Seriously. Use two skeins or opposite ends of the same skein to cast on, and then you can knit two socks at the same time on the same pair of circular needles. I have photographic proof! http://thirdbaseline.blogspot.com/2005/09/weekend-knitblogging-and-cat.html - it's the last photo in the post.

Anyway, since you're knitting them at the same time they come out exactly the same, because you do half a round on one sock, then the same half-round on the other before you turn and complete the rounds. :)

Yah. What they said. Apart from the two socks at once thing - you get so far and then have a margarita and then think 'this is going really well. Hmm, I wonder why my socks appear to be tied together somehow... AAAAAAAAARGH!' RIP, RIP, RIP.

There's a bunch of info on the knittyboard in the 'Knitty Patterns' section; just do a search on 'fuzzy feet'. (no personal experience with the pattern, though).

Weeza,

I've only knit my socks together once, and luckily I caught it about an inch into the half-round. :) It helps to put a stitch marker on each needle between the socks. A nice, big, flourescent hey-look-at-me stitch marker. Yep.

Ironically, Little Doogie wants you to see this, a knitted digestive tract:
http://www.strangebuttrewe.com/knitgi.htm

He knows this isn't very helpful, but he's only 12, after all. He's relating to you as best he can.

Holy crap! That knitted digestive system is unbelievable. Wow.

Keep the fuzzy faith Laurie. May the fuzzy force be with you.

I know this isn't my first pair of 'socks', but really, if you're paying attention, you really should get to pick up 12 sts only from the flap.
The secret is slipping that first stitch of each row. Then you can mark the last one that got slipped before you start the heel turn. After doing the heel turn, go to pick up the flap stitches, but DO NOT pick up any which appear to be on the bottom of the heel. It might seem a bit lumpy right at that first corner, but that's okay for a felted sock. Then, there WILL BE 12 chain sts up the side, and at the top, you could pick up another stitch, but that creates a little pimple that sticks out (okay on a felted sock).
If you started picking up sts on the bottom of the foot in the turned section (really easy to do), as well as one in the top corner next to the instep sts, you could easily get 15 sts that way.
So, use a marker on that last heel flap row and make sure to slip the first st of each heel flap row.
But relax...these are felted so it's all fine!

Love Doogie. Love him in "How I Met Your Mother". Good luck with the Feet!