Sock Knitting

When you browse through Ravelry it seems sock knitting is not only alive and well but extremely popular. If you haven't checked out Ravelry yet, and you're interested in knitting or crochet, you absolutely must - be prepared to loose a few hours or days though!

I've made baby size socks in the past, and always muddled my way through picking up the heel stitches, never quite getting it exactly right to the pattern, but fudging it to work and look right. Picking up those stitches though had always put me off attempting adult sized socks, too stressful.

Through Ravelry though I learned sock knitting has come a long way, and although my first pair are far from perfect, the pattern I used was brilliant - as it really taught the 'recipe' of how to make your sock as you go. So the first pair look a bit like Goofy's rejects when they are off my feet, but over a few pairs I'm hoping to improve on that.

hmm, they do not look like a good shape? 

I used 'Simple toe up socks' by Denise Bell, learning the magic loop method - which was mind blowing. For the life of me I couldn't work out how you could knit two socks, in the round, on one circular needle? I thought about it till my brain hurt, and then just decided to cast on and go for it, and then there it was, it's actually really simple. That Sarah Hauschka is one clever knitter to come up with that one.

I also learned Judy Beckers magic cast on (again, reading it was nonsensical, but give it a try, it's easier than it looks). This means you can start the socks at the toes with no cast on seam, so super comfy as well as less of that old fashioned chunky home made look.

The real brilliance of Denise's pattern is that you start from the toe up, and insert the heel after finishing the sock, so you can knit the two socks identical and to the very last bit of yarn. It's appropriately called an afterthought heel. You place a marker row with scrap yarn where the heel will go, and then, a little tricky, you go back and pull this out, put all the stitches back on the circular and knit your heels using decreases - no picking up stitches! This makes it brilliant for a knitting project on the go, as 80% of the sock is just mindless knitting, no pattern checking, and you can put them down at any point and pick them straight back up.

The socks do fit quite well when they're on, much less Goofy. A few changes needed in the next pair though, the foot section should be a little firmer (as home made socks stretch during the day, so they should be quite snug to start with or they'll end up bunched in your shoes). The calf section I'm still confused on. I added some extra stitches to cope with my fat calves, which means they fit, but I'm not sure they will stay up all day. I didn't weave the ends in, and have decided to wash and wear them a couple of times first and see how they go. I was relieved to learn that crispy rough sock wool in the store is much softer after washing.

They fit! well kinda, mostly, near enough

Brimming with confidence, I came home with a nice ball of Italian cotton, thinking I would try and perfect short socks for wearing in my sneakers for the summer, and get back to the longer ones when the weather cools down. This was a rookie error of massive overconfidence. Cotton has no stretch, so I had to keep adjusting the stitch count when I started, thought I was doing okay though and just squeezed out the two stocks from the one ball. I really came unstuck though when I tried to unpick the scrap yarn and insert the heel, one went fine, the other was a total mess, I think the poor hotel lighting I was working under sent me astray, and then my impatience really ruined it! I decided to continue with the one good one and get the heel in and see how it fitted - only to discover due to the lack of cotton stretch, the sock won't stretch around the heel to get it on. So that pair is a bust! 

It was all going so well until it wasn't! 

Then my new found sock knitting addiction hit a hurdle, I blew a shoulder. A month of sleeping in a far too soft hotel bed and I arrived home with my back out, a stiff neck, and problem with my rotator cuff - which meant no knitting, no drawing, no lap top.....what else is there to do in Birmingham? Watching TV without doing something else is so boring!