traveling stitch knee highs

Another pair of twisted/traveling stitch knee highs! This was the first pair for a pattern I’m working on writing, that will allow for whatever calf shape you have. This not at all overly ambitious goal has been a bit tricky, but I think I’ve finally figured out all the correct arithmetic… it’s tricky not quite knowing how everyone’s legs are shaped. I have an idea of the range of max calf circumferences, and max ankle circumferences, and I assume the person with the smallest ankle doesn’t have the largest calf, but who knows? How large is the largest calf for the person with the tiny ankles? Hopefully this pattern will be such that everyone can have a well fitted sock.

The yarn for this pair is a heavier fingering weight. It’s the Forest base from the Green Mountain Spinnery, in a lovely natural grey color. The fiber content is a blend of wool and tencel, so it feels different from a standard sock yarn. I was almost done with these socks (working down the foot, doing two at a time) when I realized I would need a second skein. It was listed as out of stock on their website, but happily when I called they still had some in stock! I was super grateful, as this pair of socks needed to be done and given to their new owner before I moved.

Out and Proud yarn from Round Mountain Fibers

I’m a sucker for rainbow yarns, and when I saw the limited edition ‘out and proud’ yarn from Round Mountain fibers, I just had to play with it. I really wanted to keep the colors separate, rather than allowing them to mix and become muddy. My first attempt was to try entrelac socks, figuring that the smaller squares would help get cool pooling.

I think it’s really neat how each square contains its own rainbow, but it wasn’t quite the overall effect I was looking for, so next I decided to try socks with a zig zag pattern on the cuff. I need to work on calculating the number of stitches better-on these the ankles are a bit on the big size, as I increased too many when switching to the zig zags. After the heel flap I decreased until the sock felt snug, so I now have a better idea of how many stitches I should have used!

My third (and final) attempt is the one I’m super excited about-I’ve written up the pattern, and should be looking for test knitters soon. I figured out how many stitches I’d need to get the colors to pool, and in order to use that number of stitches for the ankle, I did short rows so that I knit at an angle, increasing and decreasing two stitches every 4 rows.

I’ve written instructions for both a short row heel and a heel flap, though both heel styles had to be modified to fit the sock. The short row heel has a swipe of black that goes up into the top of the sock to make the geometry work out, and similarly the heel flap is shorter on one side than the other. Also, the socks are “handed”, with a right and a left foot. I considered writing them with a symmetric toe, but the “handed” toe follows so naturally from the rest of the pattern that it seemed a shame not to give it a try.

I’m really excited about this pattern because it not only looks really cool with indie dyed yarn (particularly this yarn from Round Mountain Fibers), but also in self striping sock yarn. The socks below are done in Knit Picks Felici, in the color “rainbow” (matches some of the hats I made last winter). I love how the stripes make ‘v’s down the cuff and foot. I did the heel flap for this pair. Normally I have a really strong preference for a heel flap heel, and I make it really long, but something about knitting on the bias seems to make both a short row heel and a short heel flap work really well for my foot. I love that these socks have a lot more stretch and give to them, just because the knitting is at a slight angle. My working title for this pattern is the 22.5 degree socks, as that’s the angle the stitches are tilted by. I’m still trying to decide if I should stick with that name or come up with something different!

As seen on Wikipedia socks

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The sock as shown on Wikipedia

If you go to the english wikipedia page on socks (at least, if you did so between December of 2010 and the time of writing), the first image is of ‘a hand knitted white sock made out of handspun wool’. I’ve been the proud owner of those socks for many years, and I’m now working on writing up the pattern for them, and knitting a pair of them myself. For my first sample I decided to use some of Jaggerspun’s Mousam Falls sock yarn, in the color Nutmeg, mostly because there was a cone of it near me when I wanted to cast on. In retrospect, I think a lighter yarn works better for these socks, which is super convenient, because I’ll be publishing the pattern in conjunction with the release of Shorn III from Melissa of knittingthestash. This is Melissa’s third time making a limited edition farm skein yarn, and this is how she describes it:

Shorn III is a blend of Corriedale and Corriedale/Teeswater fiber sheared from Cathe Capel’s Seven Sisters Farm in Sidney, IL and spun by Stonehedge Fiber Mill in Michigan. Each skein is 250 yds of 3-ply fingering weight yarn. It is natural, undyed yarn that is an off-white color.

I’m currently working on polishing up the pattern, but it should be available for test knitting soon! I’ve expanded the pattern to include different sizes (instead of just the exact size/sock pictured on Wikipedia), and I’ve added an option for calf shaping, like I did on my recent oatmeal colored traveling stitch socks. The wiki sock is equivalent to a medium size with no calf shaping in my pattern. With those changes, I decided that I needed to test knit a version with calf shaping, so the brown ones below are the small size with 16 stitches worth of calf shaping.

One interesting thing about the pattern is that the back is not symmetrical. On either side of the central back panel, there are two different 6 stitch designs, apparently because mum couldn’t decide which one she liked better when originally making these socks, and decided to simply use both. Even though you can’t see that in the picture on Wikipedia, I decided that I wanted to be true to the original socks, and wrote it up that way. I did make one change though, in the ribbing at the top. Specifically, on the original socks the ribbing does not line up nicely with the main pattern, so I fixed that. I also noticed that the original has a twisted stitch column on either side of the top through the length of the foot, and I decided not to keep that either, mostly for ease of writing the pattern (I can be lazy sometimes…). Other than that though, I did my best to accurately represent the original Wikipedia socks, with added size options.

oatmeal traveling stitches socks

I’ve been playing around with traveling stitches again. For this pair I couldn’t quite decide what pattern I wanted down the front, which is why the sock alternates between two different patterns. I think I like the open lozenge better, but I’m not sure. It was fun to do both, as it made the pattern repeat longer (and thus more interesting). I did my standard calf shaping at the back, so that the cuff is bigger around than the ankle. I hadn’t planned what was going to happen to the side design on the foot until I got to the heel and realized that it was too wide to have continue all the way down the foot, but I think it merges into the smaller design relatively gracefully?

I made these socks as a gift for a friend, as congratulations for getting her PhD. Since that was about two years ago, she gets a fairly fancy pair of socks!

o Tannenbaum socks

I first cast these on over a year ago, with the idea that they would be a Christmas gift for a friend. I got as far as the ribbing on the cuff, and then the yarn languished in a box for a year. This is my second time knitting this pattern, and I really love this color for it-it’s called ‘Central Park’ by Forbidden Fiber Co. It is a lovely deep green, and it was nice to work with. For the white I used some Opal sock yarn. The pattern is one I designed and published! I’m really happy with how the pattern has turned out, and it’s been fun seeing the socks people have made with it. I think its my most popular pattern.

skull socks

These cheerful little guys were for another friend, and similar to the bee socks, also involved duplicate stitch. It turns out that I’m not always good at following patterns. Like with this pattern. From the whole pattern, I only ended up using the chart for the skulls. Even the size of the heel flap is different. I did originally try to make the heel according to the pattern, but it unfortunately did not turn out well. Second try, using duplicate stitch, turned out great, even though the pink yarn is a bit finer than the black. To try and account for that, I cheated and had my mom knit the heel flaps for me, since she’s a super tight knitter. I think we even went down a needle size. We debated using different yarns and techniques, but we both really loved the contrast between the hot pink and true black.

bee socks!

Two pairs of bee socks, for two different friends. One really likes bees, and the other just studied them for years and wrote a dissertation on them… These socks may look familiar, and that’s because I did a very similar pair just over a year ago, but those had four bees dancing their way around the top, while these pairs only have two bees per sock. I still haven’t mastered perfect colorwork, so I decided that duplicate stitch would give me a more even and stretchy fabric. Turns out though that eight bees is a fair amount of duplicate stitched bees! It was a bit tricky in that the yellow is a finer yarn than the black, so while the black bees on a yellow background works perfectly, I found I had to double my yellow yarn when stitching onto the black background.

Other than the duplicate stitched bees, these are fairly standard socks, with nothing particularly fancy. I really like these two colors for bees-the dark grey is a Knitpicks Muse, which works well since it isn’t a solid color, and has some variegation. The golden yellow color is called spicy caramel from ND yarn company, and is exactly the shade I wanted for these!

blue tweedy socks

Another variation on a theme, with another skein set of tôt le matin yarn. I decided to try a subtle lace/yarn over between the cables, and I think it worked. I thought they might be more obvious, but I’m happy with how they turned out.

For this pair I only used the 20g contrasting skein on the ribbing and toe, not the heel, which allowed me to do 20 rows of ribbing before starting the pattern. That’s more ribbing than I think many patterns call for. This pattern also has some stretch in it, with the two purl stitches between cables and the lace detail. I think that stretchiness helps with the sock’s fit, though it can make the socks look awfully long and narrow when they aren’t on a foot!

purple tweedy socks

After playing around with this pattern on hats, I decided to use it for some socks. I chose the most basic one, with a single traveling stitch faux cable pattern, rather than the doubles or zig-zags. I really like it, mostly because it doesn’t pull in as much as a typical cable does. I also really like the yarns-they came together from tôt le matin, and I think they did an excellent job of choosing a contrasting color. There’s just enough of the contrast yarn to do a short cuff, toe and heel, though I can’t make as deep/wide of a heel or as much ribbing as I’d normally do.

I ended up doing k2 p1 ribbing on the cuff, so that it would naturally lead into 5 stitch wide cables with a single purl stitch between. Normally I use k2 p2 ribbing, as it is the most stretchy, with the theory that more stretchy ribbing will help keep the sock up while wearing it. I had a really hard time remembering that I wasn’t doing my standard k2p2 ribbing, as each time I cast on for these socks I was doing other things, and I ended up having to rip out a few rows each time because I forgot the plan!

two more pairs of blue/teal/pink handspun socks!

I was carefully looking through all my pictures from this year, and I realized I missed two pairs of socks from this set! The first pair uses the solid grey yarn and the last of the solid bright colors yarn. I did a bit of ribbing, the toes and heels in the grey, and then I used helical knitting to alternate between the grey and the colorful for the main body of the sock. Mostly because I only had a very little of the colorful yarn left, and I didn’t want to waste any of it, but also because I wanted to play around with helical knitting. I really like that helical knitting doesn’t have that jump between rows, and I also find the general notion appealing.

The second pair of socks is from the yarn where I plied the colorful against the grey. This was a new pattern for me, but one I think I’ll try again. It’s subtle, yet gives some interest and texture to the sock, so that it isn’t boring.

I got really lazy about taking good pictures of my work when I wasn’t posting, so I only had a shot of the first cuff in progress for this pair. My mom has these socks in her stash of knitted things (primarily for sale), so I had to ask her to find them and take pictures! Happily she also has a foot model, though she doesn’t store hers on the mantlepiece (I’m told that’s a weird place to store it, but it works for me). I used to have a tough time getting good pictures of my socks, but I’ve been really happy with this plastic foot and its magnetic base that allows it to stand up.

Since she was taking pictures anyway, I had her get some nice ones of one of the other pairs from this set. It turns out there were 7 pairs (!!!) in total from this 1 lb of dyed roving plus some unknown amount of grey.