In these particular socks, I very carefully judged it, too, even going so far as to rip out a couple of rounds of the first sock because I realized I was going to have one very thin stripe of black and blue across the front of the sock and I didn't think that would look very good. I hate to rip out, but I would have hated worse to finish two socks that way.

So what ended up happening was that I ended up with a wider-than-normal yellow stripe across the front of the sock, which is fine.

I was reading someone else's knitting blog where they were talking about the self-patterning yarn, and (I wish I could remember who it was, but I can't) she said she always cuts off the first piece of yarn at someplace recognizable, then leaves it hanging so she can tell where to start the yarn for the second sock. (If you haven't used the self-patterning yarns, this may not make sense, but if you have, you'll recognize it's so you can make two socks that are striped the same.)

When I first started knitting socks, I didn't think I'd worry about them matching, but after I'd seen a few pairs that other people did, that didn't match, I realized that it did make a difference, to me at least. I think they look a lot better when they match.

Another thing I discovered was that, while I think I like working with the 5" doublepoints, they're not long enough for me to use on the heel flap. I'm way too paranoid about stitches falling off the ends of the needles when there are so many stitches on there (30), and I drop enough stitches while I'm doing it that I don't want to make it worse. So right now I've got the heel stitches on a 7-1/2" needle, am knitting with another 7-1/2" one, and the foot stitches are on two 5" ones. Works for me.