to build a better bob sock

Well, I knit up the second bob sock following Wendy's Generic Toe-up Sock Pattern, and although it is (deliberately) 2" shorter than the first one (i.e., it doesn't try to reach over the "powerful" part of my calves) and I bound off using size 3 needles (compared to the size 0 needles with which I knit the socks)... it is still too damn tight at the top. I did not have this problem with top-down socks, so I'm a little baffled. My new plan is to rip out the top inch of ribbing and increase by four stitches (as Wendy recommends in her pattern) and at least one needle size. If that doesn't work, I might just give up on the toe-up sock. :-(

Otherwise I really love these socks. Pics at some more completed stage.

My education in the knitting of socks continues hand-in-hand with my education in blogging. I have yet to develop a blog voice that fills me with joy. With other kinds of writing I've found that this is largely an audience problem, which is to say that I sound funny if I don't have a clear sense of who I'm writing for. Two solutions occur to me:

1. I could make up a fictitious correspondent, let's call her "Poodle," for example, and write my blog entries to her.

2. I could share my blog with someone, a la Mason-Dixon Knitting. I love this idea. The perfect correspondents for this purpose would be The Wise Ones, my two graduate school buddies (from lo these many years past), except that........ they are (gasp) not knitters. But what the hell, they could write about other stuff, right? I provide the knitting, singing, and poodle content, they provide the academic, career, Unitarian, dance, and cat content, just to name a few possibilities? The other stumbling block would be their very demanding jobs, but maybe the benefits to soul and intellect of sharing a blog with me would cancel that out.

Just thoughts.