Sometimes the light bulb is a little slow . . . .

My biggest problem when knitting socks is working on the gusset. You knit and turn the heel, pick up all those stitches around the edge, and then alternate rows of decreases and straight knitting to get back to your original number of stitches. I can never keep track of whether I'm decreasing or just knitting a row--I usually keep a piece of paper and make tick marks as I go along. If there's an even number of marks, I'm on a decrease row; if it's odd, I'm on a knitting row.

Today something went off in this pea-sized brain of mine. I had been trying to figure out how to use a marker to show which row I was on, but I couldn't quite figure it out. Finally I realized--make it a removable marker! I took one of my pretty bead stitch markers and put a claw clasp on it. Now when I'm knitting a decrease row, I attach this to the center-heel marker that marks the beginning of the row. When I start the straight knit row, I move it to a decrease marker on the side.

Center heel--decrease this row

Side--knit this row
So far, so good--no mistakes so far!