Category Archives: socks

I’ve debated with myself about whether to show any of the socks before they’re complete, but I think a little taster of a sock or two is permitted. The yarn is the Smoothie Sock from Artist’s Palette Yarns I blogged about last week.

For over 18 months I’ve had an idea for a sock collection germinating. But baby stuff took priority over my designing mojo last year and it’s only in recent months that I’ve felt as if there’s room in my head for anything else. Shawl designing is great fun, but sock designing is my first love and I’d like to finally get these designs committed to wool.

So to set the ball rolling, I’ve created a survey to find out what the basics of the patterns should be. You can click here to take the survey and I would greatly appreciate it if anyone who has an interest in socks could fill it in. It’s only 10 questions and will take but a moment of your time. And then I can starting thinking about playing with yarn..!

I present one man-sized short-row heel. It took a little longer than I’d hoped as I messed up the second half, where you work back along the yarnovers, and had to frog the whole heel back. But second time worked like a charm and even after frogging still probably took less time than knitting a flap.

I hope it’s not just me that has issues with clinging to the familiar when it comes to knitting (it isn’t, is it?!). I learnt to knit socks from a very simple, top-down, heel-flap pattern (time for gratuitous first sock photo):

and it stuck with me. I suspect if my first sock had been a toe-up sock with a short-row heel I’d have avoided top-down socks. It’s good to get away from a comfort zone for knitting and try something else out. After all, it’s only yarn – it can be frogged.

So I had my new skein of sock yarn and decided to wind it in a ball so that it was ready for when I wanted to knit with it, and then decided to just knit a few rounds to see how it knitted up and then before I knew it, I’d gone and got myself half a sock:

In my defence, I can now assure anyone that has the same yarn that it doesn’t pool. I love the fine stripes of gold and navy and little patches of olive green and hopefully Mr B won’t consider them to be a bit on the overly-cheerful side.

However, this sock is not going to be just my usual standard, heel flap patten that I do for every plain sock I ever knit. For one thing I’m pretty bored with knitting every mansize sock in exactly the same way and I am also fed up with having to keep a tally of the heel flap rows because I can’t trust myself to count the rows correctly, and live in fear of having socks with lopsided heels. So I decided that I would try a SHORT-ROW HEEL instead.

I have only worked short-row heels once before, on Rose’s tiny Better Than Booties socks. That pattern uses Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ short-row heel method which I found worked really well and didn’t leave any unsightly holes: something which has often put me off the idea of short-row heels in the past. Her Priscilla’s Dream Socks pattern uses the same heel (and toe) and is available in Favorite Socks which I have (as well as Interweave Knits Fall 2000, which I don’t) and it’s this pattern that I will be following. Once the leg is a little longer, that is.

Almost two years ago, I got an email asking for submissions for a new sock pattern book so I duly submitted a design, was thrilled to be accepted and then had the loooong wait until the book was published. And then, just as I was about to reveal my socks to the world, I went and had a baby four weeks early. So the book has now been out ages and some people have even knitted my socks which is brilliant, but I’ve never actually blogged about the design.

The book is called The Joy of Sox and these are my socks as they appear in the book:

The brief for the book was that it was a slightly risqué play on a book with a similar title and the patterns and book style is slightly tongue in cheek, but not rude so I can still show it to my grandmother. My socks are cute rather than sexy, and more in mind for wearing on a cool evening, curled up on the sofa with a loved one watching DVDs, which is what I tend to do a lot anyway.

Yes, sock. Not socks, which ironically would be better, but one shrunken sock. You see, I’d been scrupulously ensuring that I washed Mr B’s Mini Mochi socks on a 30 degree wool cycle because I was concerned about them shrinking. It’s not the most convenient thing to do as I usually favour the “bung everything in and wash at 40″ method and only bother to separate white and dark colours. But I started having a once or twice weekly wool wash for all Mr B’s socks and Rose’s knitted clothes so it wasn’t too bad. Until the weekend and when I was rushing to bundle a dark washload together, a sock managed to sneak its way into the pile. Possibly hidden up a trouser leg. And this was the result:

It’s like cardboard. If it was any stiffer, I could use it as a sock blocker itself. The other sock which escaped the machine is fine, but unless Mr B suddenly develops a rare, foot-shrinking illness, or only ever has one cold foot, he has a pair of unwearable socks. Socks knitted from a not inexpensive yarn which I was on a waiting list to buy. Socks which took forever to knit while I was perma-feeding a tiny baby. There may have been swearing.

So it’s back to Trekking, Regia and Opal 75% wool sock yarns for this household. I will never again be swayed by pretty colours, no matter how much they taunt me. I am immune.

My Jules sock pattern, from Issue 1 of The Inside Loop, is now available as a free download. It features Mr B’s feet in a starring role on the front page; what more could you want?!

Normally at this time of year, I’d be deeply embroiled in gift knitting. Of course, this year things are very different and the normal half dozen gifts are being pared down to just one at the moment, given that I have no idea whether I’ll even get this one done in time. My heartfelt thanks go out to online shopping with free delivery which means I’ve bought most of my relatives’ gifts with just a few clicks and not even having to venture out into the rain.

But I couldn’t not make Mr B’s annual Christmas Socks. This will be the fourth year that he’s had them and it’s becoming a bit of a tradition now and given that it’s hard enough to buy presents for him as it is, this is at least one thing that I can give him that he can’t just go and buy himself.

I’m using the Mini Mochi I bought earlier in the year for these. So far it’s knitting up nicely. It does have a slight fuzzy halo and is a bit loosely/tightly spun in places, but the colours are gorgeous and it’s producing a very jaunty pair of socks.

My Pablo socks are now available to download as a free pattern. One down… several to go!

So, after I finished the manly socks, I pulled out my sock yarn stash to see just what I have available. I have it all listed on Ravelry, but having the sock yarns together in front of me is a lot more helpful. I have actually got a fair bit of wool/nylon blend yarn, though not many manly colours. Some of the yarns I probably won’t ever use for socks as I know from experience it won’t wear well, such as the cotton blend sock yarns. I wonder whether 100g of 4ply yarn is enough to knit a baby garment instead..?

Anyway, I eventually found some very boring grey Sunbeam St. Ives 4 Ply Sock Wool, and decided to use it to make Mr B another pair of Having Hope socks, to make up for the feltedness of the first pair I knitted him.

So instead of knitting another orange sleeve on the Tomten while on holiday, I knitted a toe up sock. The yarn is so boring that it needs a good pattern and being twisted into dozens of cables really works. It’s a lovely pattern that I really enjoyed knitting the first time round so it’s also no hardship to knit it again.

I’m knitting a size smaller than before as the previous socks ended up being a little baggy on the feet. After a brief in-progress trying on session, these are proving to be a perfect fit and are perfect when I fancy an change from knitting tiny baby stuff.

Poor Mr B. Not so long ago, he had half a dozen pairs of handknitted socks and was pretty much wearing them all the time (depending on the efficiency of the laundress… ). Then I swear they all got holes in at precisely the same time. Some were worse than others; I made him throw away both the pair knitted with Opal Rodeo Cotton and the Jules socks, as they were just more hole than sock, and tragically, the Having Hope socks had felted, which is the first time I’ve ever heard of a sock yarn with nylon felting, so perhaps it was the BFL content. Still gutting, though, when they’re the fanciest manly socks I’ve ever knitted.

So I promised I’d knit a few pairs this year to help build up his collection again, but then you all know what happened to my knitting mojo. I felt so guilty about his lack of socks that I even went out and bought a cheap pack of 7 pairs of plain black socks. Which means his feet are warm but not fetchingly attired and obviously I need to cast on something that isn’t a baby hat…

The yarn is the only skein of remotely manly yarn I have left in my stash that I know won’t felt or wear out in a matter of days. My old friend Trekking XXL comes to the rescue again! I’m planning to keep these for odd moments and travelling as they’re fairly mindless, though I also got a lot done this morning while sitting at my pc for two hours getting an antivirus problem sorted out.

I suppose the question now is whether the socks or the baby will arrive first..!

Maybe it *was* the thought that I only had a few rows left to do on my first Having Hope sock that made me wake up at 4am the other morning. Mr B regularly gets up a stupid o’clock to go travelling all over the country to avoid me for work, but normally I never even stir when the alarm goes off. But for some reason I was awake and chirpy and after deciding that no, I wasn’t going to be able to nod off again, I switched on the radio and picked up my knitting. By 6.30 the sock was finished.

With not a peep from the small people, I decided to cast on for #2 in the vain hope that I can avoid Second Sock Syndrome. I didn’t think I’d actually be *able* to cast on because I had only done a Turkish cast on once before (for the first sock) and figured I’d have to get up and come down to the pc to look up the directions once again. But somehow, with the needles and yarn in my hands, it all came together. My dodgy brain, which can’t even furnish me with the correct names for my children at times (fortunately “darling” is multi-purpose!) had somehow stored the cast on somewhere in a spare brain cell and I managed to knit the entire toe before I was disturbed with demands requests for breakfast.

This is the most intricate sock I’ve knitted for Mr B and seeing as how he has size 11 feet (that’s a US shoe size 11½), it was both intricate *and* time consuming. I should say, it’s a gorgeous pattern. I would have bought it if it was crap, of course, because it’s for a good cause, but being Diane’s design, it’s most definitely not crap at all and is rather beautiful and lovely. I love the cables (and learning to cable without a cable needle definitely helps!), the nifty little braid below the ribbing, and the heel flap which doesn’t require picking up stitches.

I also really enjoyed using Magic Loop. I didn’t see the appeal at all before I tried it, but having to only fiddle around changing needles once per round compared to two or three times when using dpns is a good thing. Also, I have never accidentally slid the needle out of the stitches..!

As I mentioned earlier, my only worry is SSS because the cuff was a bugger to knit. Not complicated, but knitting a sock from the top down means that once you’re past the heel, there’s only patterning on half of the foot. Going toe up means the “light relief” comes first. It was definitely a labour of love not to stop knitting sooner and make them girly ankle socks, though knowing that Mr B probably wouldn’t wear them if they were spurred me on!

I was vaguely hoping that I’d get the pair done for our wedding anniversary, but it’s only five days away now. Plain socks are doable. Intricate cabled socks, not so much.

I’m currently finishing off yet another round of secret knitting. All I can say is that I’ve had a design accepted for an upcoming sock book from Lark Books and apart from bouncing about with glee, it means knuckling down and knitting!

So while work on the Having Hope socks has been delayed, it’s given me time to get obsessive about the needles I use. As I mentioned in my last post about the socks, I bought some Prym circs which annoyed me and Diane helped me out by sending me some Addi Turbo circs instead.

Well, all was well for a while until the cord began to bother me. I like the cord on the Prym circs. It’s very fine and bends nicely. The Addi cord felt cumbersome in comparison, even though having the stitches slipping easily over the cord onto the needle was an improvement.

So I did the only thing I could do. I bought more needles.

Here we have my growing collection of 2.5mm 80cm long circular needles. The latest acquisition is at the top of the picture – a Knit Picks metal circ that has both a straight needle and thin cord. I have found needle perfection. For the moment…

Ever since I learnt to knit socks, I’ve done them the same way: top down with dpns. Last year I had an attempt at knitting them toe up with a short row heel but that one sock has languished in my stash ever since and will probably be frogged and turned into a nice plain sock. I didn’t particularly enjoy the casting on method with dpns, and the pattern is 2 x 2 rib all the way and therefore just a *bit* boring to knit.

So when Diane published her Having Hope sock pattern to raise funds for Cancer Research in Australia , I immediately bought it, but didn’t think that I would ever actually knit the socks. At least as the pattern was. Toe-up was bad enough, but magic loop as well? *shudders*

And then the yarn arrived. It’s another Cairi special: 75% wool/25% nylon sock yarn for long lasting socks and a beautiful semi-solid teal colourway:

Mr B is getting more and more adventurous with his sock colours ever since I started knitting them for him. I wasn’t sure the colours would be manly enough, but he loves them (much to Diane’s disappointment!).

Anyway, with such lovely yarn to be used, I decided I may as well give it a go. One pair of needles quickly bought from one of my favourite eBay stores (more about those in a minute), and I was set.

I trawled the internet for directions on how to do a Turkish Cast On. There are a lot tutorials available; I think the first one I came across was FluffyKnitterDeb‘s, but they were all very clear; I just had to try it about half a dozen times because for some reason I was always ending up one stitch short. I don’t quite know what I did in the end, but I finally managed to cast on enough stitches and away I went!

Having never even tried to Magic Loop before, I was surprised how easy it was to master. It’s fairly intuitive – the cord needs to be in a certain place so that you can use one end of the needles to knit the stitches off the other and after a few rounds, I was whizzing along. But the needles (Prym) aren’t the best for the job and I’m going to change to Addis as soon as I have some. I do like Prym circs as a rule, but the needles bend as they join to the cord and when you’re sliding stitches up and down all the time, having to move them over the bump every time is time consuming. But for the time being, I’m happy to use them and watch as my sock grows from a toe into a foot.

I feel like I did when I first knit socks; everything is new and exciting and just a little scary. There’s a lot to be said for being so familiar with the way to knit something that you can do it in your sleep, but I’m really enjoying the edge-of-my-seat sock knitting experience as well.

Has it been a week since I posted already?! The last week disappeared in a blur of Finishing Important Secret Stuff for the magazine, without even a cupcake to tide me over. So it was nice to cast on something completely different to have a break from knitting to a deadline for a while.

I’ve started knitting Kai’s Lotus Lace Socks using the Wild Fire Fibres BFL sock yarn.

The lace pattern is really enjoyable to knit. Not too tedious and not too complicated so that I’m dropping stitches all over the place. I confess that I didn’t read the ribbing directions properly which is why I’ve ended up with a k1, p1 rib. Ribbing is the boring part of knitting a sock, so by the time I’d realised my mistake, I was almost done, so not about to frog it! The yarn is dreamy to work with. It’s striping slightly, but not enough to obscure the lace, which is good. Think I might potter about a bit today and knit some more.

Thanks to everyone for the get well soon wishes. We’re all a lot better now.

Just a quick post to say that I have started work on a smaller, woman’s size, version of my Hareton sock pattern.

After swatching a couple of times, I realised it would be easier to modify the stitch pattern, rather than trying to use the same one as the larger version. It’s simple enough to do and will be a much quicker knit than the originals. Unfortunately, they won’t be done within the next couple of weeks because of other knitting taking priority. But they’re on their way!

ETA: Because I am a numpty and forgot to mention the yarn! It’s Rowan 4ply Soft in Tea Rose.

Excuse me while I yawn through this post. Like most parts of the UK, we’ve been treated to wet and windy weather over the past day or so. I don’t want to go out. The small people don’t want to go out. And the cat doesn’t want to go out. I don’t know how she does it. She’s must have a bladder the size of a football. But eventually, despite the wind and rain, she had to pay a visit outside. Only it wasn’t just before I went to bed. Or when I wake up. Oh no. It was at 4am this morning. I couldn’t even nudge Mr B to let her out as he’s away. *sighs* I need coffee. And is it too early for chocolate?

I am already on my second WIP of the year, but I’m afraid that and the finished one will have to stay secret for now. I would feel more smug than Smuggy McSmug of Smugtown who won the International Smugness Competition five years in a row if I could post a FO photo when it’s only mid January. I might cheat and backdate the post with the photos in when I can finally reveal them.

But my plan to knit the Dolphin Lace Scarf once this second project is done has been thwarted. Of course it has. I said not so long ago that it was hard for me to plan my knitting and there you have it. My lovely grandma who (as far as I am aware) is my only relative besides Mr B who wears the knitted socks I make, mentioned that she’d been wearing hers in bed recently. Not the Jaywalkers I knit her, but a pair of plain Opal ones that were knit pre-blogging. Well, that just won’t do. She clearly needs bedsocks!

I don’t know if it’s the same for anyone else (I imagine it is, because let’s face it, we’re all obsessed knitters) but I was already mentally looking at patterns and considering them as soon as she mentioned that she was wearing her socks as bedsocks. So my brain went something like “Ooh, bedsocks! Alpaca! Soft!” and before the conversation had ended, I had pretty much cast on for them.

Of course I didn’t, because I have a WIP and I am being good (ha!) but later in the day I went to my stash and found a skein of Artesano Hummingbird in Flamingo…

…and after working on my WIP all day, it couldn’t hurt to cast on just to see how it knitted..!

I should mention the pattern I’m sort of using. As I said before, my thoughts immediately went to these socks:

They’re the Heelless Sleeping Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks. They’re knit with fingering weight yarn and 2.75mm needles. With only 48 sts cast on, this would make them far too small. Hummingbird is DK weight, and I’m using 3.25mm dpns and getting a far bigger sock. But because the yarn is so heavily varigated, the stitch pattern was getting completely lost on the sock. So basically I’m knitting a plain tube which has no resemblence to the pattern other than the stitch count.

I know I could have used a plain yarn, but the buttery softness of the alpaca is perfect for cozy feet in bed. Plus it’s stash, and I get to feel virtuous for using up yarn I already have. It would be something if I could completely avoid buying any yarn at all this year. It’s certainly doable considering how much yarn I already own. *blushes* But this is not a resolution. Because then I won’t feel despondent when I don’t manage to stick to it.

This will be the perfect pattern for mindless knitting when I need to keep my hands busy but don’t want to knit something that needs any thought whatsoever. I just knit straight till they’re the right length and then shape the toe.