Porcupine wrestling

Knitting socks from the toe up has a lot of advantages: you can try them on as you go, you can use up every last inch of the yarn, you can usually make the leg a lot longer than you normally would without worrying about running out before the toe. The major disadvantage, at least for me, is dealing with the double-pointed needles at the beginning.

God, I hate this part.

The toe shapes up pretty quickly though and once I have a little more fabric, I'll be able to switch over to a 12" circular, which will make things much easier.

The method I use is pretty simple: knit a square of stockinette 4 stitches by 5 rows, pick up 4 stitches on each side of the square, keep the sides with cast-on and live stitches even at 4 stitches, and increase on the other two sides until you have the number of stitches you need to fit around the ball of the foot.