here's the socks

the left pair

the left pair was made first. it’s the rye worsted by tin can knits. i chose this pattern mostly because they had a nice diagram for the construction, simple set sizes^[1], and used thicker yarn^[2]. i decided to make the cuff and heel and toes a different colour because i felt like it. that ended up being a kinda interesting decision because the heel looks weirdly tall and narrow when the socks are flat, but when they’re on a foot it looks just fine. 3D objects are wild

the right pair

for the second pair i read a bunch of different toe-up patterns and attempted to cobble together something myself:

• it uses fingering/sock weight yarn
• the big toe and toes are separate (not visible in the pic)
  • connected via three needle bind off (i saw a pattern which grafted them instead)
  • doing such a small circumference with DPNs was not comfortable
• the foot is 3×1 ribbing
  • picked this ribbing because ribbing in general gives more leeway in terms of fit (contracts more than stockinette but stretches to the same), and 3×1 requires fewer purls than 2×2 (i’m not happy with my purling yet)
  • 10% negative ease (about 10% smaller than your foot, so that it’s snug), about 1 inch shorter lengthwise
• heel is shadow wrap short rows
  • did you know that the heel diagonal does not need 10% negative ease, and needs more like 20%? i found out by doing some increases before the heel, then knitting the heel, then tried it on and finding it was way too roomy and having to frog it^[3]

trying to come up with my own pattern was a massive challenge but i’m so glad i did. i learnt a lot about socks and the way knitted fabric works and why other patterns chose to do what they did. i love looking back at all the pages of scribbles in my notebook as i tried to understand and plan it all

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footnotes

1. i saw people sometimes warn off patterns with generic sizes because they might not fit correctly. most yarn simply doesn’t have the kind of elastic that’s in store-bought socks, so you need to be more careful about fit. i planned these as house/bed socks so it didn’t matter whether or not the fit was perfect, plus i didn’t want to have to learn how to do all of the measuring stuff at the same time as learning all the rest of the sock knitting process. it worked out fine ↩︎

2. very glad i saw advice to do a thicker weight sock as the first one. i could see what i was doing better (especially with the lighter coloured yarn) and there were fewer stitches to knit (and undo when i made mistakes) ↩︎

3. i adore the term “frog”. it means to undo your work and comes from “rip it (back)” → “ribbit” → “frog” ↩︎