Weldon's Nineteenth Series - Little Harold Booties (or boot)

For this week's blog post I made the Little Harold Boot. Aside from the different stitch patterns this looked like it would be pretty easy to do. The top is done in what they call Point Muscovite and the foot is done in what we would call the star stitch and they refer to as a shell stitch. I'll include the instructions at the end if anyone wants to try after they see my version.
They suggest 1 oz of sport weight yarn and a hook equivalent to a 2.25 mm hook. I used Fair Isle Harbor which is a very loosely plied yarn. That caused me some difficulty working the star stitches.

The top part went well. The Point Muscovite stitch alternates a chain-3 and a single crochet. The single crochet makes the chain-3 fold over a little and gives you that bump. It's easy to do and gives a fun texture to the project. I imagine the loops would help hold in the heat and keep little feet warm.
For the next part, you do a round of the star stitch. Their version has a lot of extra yarn overs that wasn't working well with the loosely plied yarn so I did a version with fewer yarn overs. The directions are also kind of difficult to read with multiple yarn over - insert hook, etc.
After that row, they have you cut the yarn and do the instep where they say you should do it over the center five stitches. The problem here is that I ended up with 19 star stitches and this means there are seven center stitches if I need six on each side for the rest of the pattern. I had to write out the stitch pattern and read through the boot part to be sure. Maybe it would work fine and I could just skip stitches later but I did five stars stitches over the seven center star stitches. This section has you cut the yarn after each row of the four row instep. Yay more ends to sew in!

Boot after instep is completed.

The boot section treats the instep sort of like short rows. You end up crocheting around it and decreasing to make the toe and foot. They don't really tell you how to do a decrease star stitch but it isn't too hard to figure out. They manage to do all of their decreases in only five rows. I still had a big hole for the bottom of the foot at the end of row five (23 star stitches) so I did two more decrease rounds to get to something more reasonable to sew up without making an extremely skinny foot.
The last piece is the tie that goes through the loops. The directions for that made simple ties that has a little more structure than just a chain stitch.

Tie for boot

Here is the finished boot next to their illustration. Mine seems like it's made for a baby with a very tiny foot and chubby ankles. I could try blocking it since the yarn is cotton/viscose but I think I'm done with it. There won't be a second bootie for this pattern.

Here's the rating
Is the pattern easy to understand? Not really. I figured it out but I had to map it out. 0.5
Does it look like the illustration: Sort of. You can tell they're meant to be the same thing. 0.5
Would someone wear this? If you had a very particular foot shape you could wear it. 0.5
Did I enjoy making it? Yes. I really like the Point Muscovite stitch and their version of the tie was nice. 1.0
Total Score 2.50

Minimally tested and edited pattern for the Little Harold Boot in point muscovite and shell stitch:
1 oz sport weight yarn. 2.25 mm hook

Ch 34 for the top of the leg and join round
1: Do 1 sc in the first chain stitch, insert the hook in the next stitch and draw the work through, work 3 chain, yarn over and draw through 2 stitches on the hook and continue thus, doing 1 sc and 1 point alternately; and proceed round and round for 12 rounds always working 1 sc over a point stitch and a point stitch over a sc.

13: this is an open round in which to run a tie round the ankle; it should begin under the tag end of yarn at the back of the leg;
make 3 ch to stand for dc, dc on the next stitch, * 1 ch, miss one, 2 dc on the next two, and repeat from *; end with 1 chain, miss one, 1 dc close to the chain with which the round commenced and join evenly; there should be 11 groups of 2 dc.
Work 2 rounds of sc with 34 stitches in each round.

First round of Shell stitch for the boot
Beginning at the back of the leg – do 3 chain; yarn over, insert the hook in the chain stitch by the hook and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in the next chain stitch and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in the stitch of last round where the chain springs from and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in the next stitch of the previous row and draw the yarn through, then yarn over and draw through all the 9 stitches on the hook and do 1 chain to tighten the group;
(my note: Each stitch takes up two single crochets, except where it says to increase)
*yarn over, insert the hook in the little hole formed by the one chain stitch and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in a back thread of the lower part of the stitch just made and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in the next stitch of the previous row and draw the yarn through, yarn over, insert the hook in the next following stitch of the previous row and draw the yarn through, then yarn over and draw through all the 9 stitches on the hook, and do 1 chain to tighten the group; work 4 more shell stitches as from *; then increase by getting 2 shell stitches over the next two stitches of the last row; then 3 shell stitches to cove over the six middle stitches of last row; another increase of 2 shell stitches over two sc stitches and 6 more shell stitches to complete the round, and join evenly to the first stitch of the round and break off the yarn.  (my note: 19 shell/stars)

For the Instep
Draw the yarn through the little hole to the left of the seventh shell stitch, do 3 ch and work 5 shell stitches over the center five stitches of last row and break off yarn. (are you sure? I think it's seven center stitches)
Draw the yarn through the uppermost of the three chain stitches with which the last row began and work in the same manner 5 shell stitches over 5 shell stitches. Work 2 more instep rows of 5 stitches in each row; and work another row of 3 shell stitches over the 3 center stitches which completes the instep.

For the Boot
2nd round: begin at the back of the leg on the first round of the shell stitches. Work 6 shells over six stitches, 7 more shells to come up to the corner of the instep, 1 shell at the corner, 3 at the toe, 1 at the other corner, 13 along opposite side to correspond with the first side of the boot; join at the end of the round. In this round there are 31 shell stitches
3rd round. Do 6 shells over 6, then 1 over the 2 next, 1 over each of the 15 next, 1 over the two next and 1 over each of six making 29 shell stitches and join round.
4th round. Do 1 shell over each of 12 stitches, 1 over the two next, 1 over the next stitch which is the center stitch of the toe, 1 over the two next and 1 over each of the 12 stitches, 27 shells in the round and join.
5th round. Do 1 shell over two stitches of last round, 1 over each of nine, 1 over two, 1 over each of nine and 1 over the last two stitches, making in all 23 stitches, and join. Break off with a long end of yarn and sew along the sole of the boot; and in case any holes appear down the back of the heel where the rounds are joined, darn such neatly up.
23 stitches still left a big hole. I did two more rounds of decreases.
 
A double chain is worked to run around the ankle, thus
Work 2 chains stitches as usual, then insert the hook in the first chain stitch and draw the yarn through, yarn over the hook and draw through 2 stitches on the hook, * insert the hook in the stitch (loop) to the left and draw the yarn through, yarn over the hook and draw through 2 stitches on the hook, repeat from * for the length required then run the chain through the holes that have been prepared to receive it, join in front and make a small rosette of single crochet stitches as shown in the engraving.