Feet are an important part of the body that are usually ignored as they are so far away from our heads that we hardly ever think of them. But they are important because they are what support and carry around the entire body, and pain and problems with your feet can transfer to other parts of your body and contribute to ill health in the rest of the body in ways you wouldn't expect. So to me, having comfortable and therefore healthy feet is important. That means wearing socks and shoes that don't pinch or bind or are too loose or too big. Your feet will have to work to get comfortable in socks and shoes that don't fit well, and the adjustments they make to do that will affect posture and how your feet carry your body around. After a while, that is going to translate to aches and pains in places far from your feet (not to mention the aches and pains in your feet as well). So, socks should fit well.
I also think that if you are going to take the time to make handknit socks, you might as well make nice handknit socks that are pretty or handsome (if you are making them for or are a guy).
To me, that translates to interesting patterns with lace and cables and other design elements. I have spent much of my life as a fat broad who likes style, but for whom designer clothes are not designed. Never mind not well, most designers don't even recognize that the human body comes in all shapes and sizes - they only want to design for skinny model types. I also sew and learned to make my own clothes so I could wear things that looked good on me and had some sense of style. Granted it isn't the style seen in Vogue or other high fashion magazines, but it looks good on my body. Not that I care that much anymore - I'm older now and comfortable is more important than style these days.
But I still want pretty and stylish socks. That fit well. I have flat wide feet, and I need socks with a lower heel than most folks, so that is why I mostly knit socks with a short row Eye of Partridge heel. It fits my heel and foot better. I don't have high arches, so I normally forego a gussett in the foot of my socks. Gussets make the sock too large on my foot, and makes the socks feel sloppy to me.
But other people don't have flat feet and square toes. Some have incredibly high arches. Some have tiny feet. Some have thick ankles. A sock that fits me won't fit some of these other feet, and I think it's time we realized that.
Making socks that fit isn't really difficult. It's learning to take what does work for you and applying it to the patterns you want to knit. For a person with a high arch, that means a heel that has a gussett in it, and normally, that means a heel flap and gussett heel. For a person with flat feet and no arch to speak of, that means a short row heel.
The problem to me is that I abhor the heel flap style of heel. It's what is taught to most first time knitters, and it's very counter intuitive. It doesn't sound like it will fit or will even make a heel, so for someone like me, who sees things in the mind's eye, it's the hard way to go about making a heel. The short row heel is much more intuitive and makes more sense, so I like it better. Not to mention, it fits my heel, so that's what I use.
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