Dad’s the word – free sock knitting pattern

I finished the socks I was making for my dad, and had people ask what the pattern was, so I thought I would attempt to write it out. This is my first knitting pattern that’s anything more formal than scribble on the back of an envelope, so if there’s any errors, please let me know.

 I unfortunately gave the socks away before starting to write the pattern, foolishly forgetting to measure the tension, and i’ve lost the swatch I made beforehand, but i shall measure next time i see my dad. For now, if a plain 60 stitch sock fits, this sock will fit, the extra stitches make up for the pulling in of the cables. I know its written for a man, but my dad only has size UK6 feet, so it’ll probably fit women better than it does men.

 The yarn used was ONline linie 2 supersocke silk, in colour 0006, 2*50g

 I used the magic loop method, feel free to use whatever method you prefer. If using dpns, i’d recommend having the front/top stitches on one needle, and the back/bottom stitches divided between another two needles, then knit with the 4th needle. The charts for the front and back of the sock are separate.

Right. I think that’s all the preparationy stuff. Read through the pattern before you start, as there will be at least one instance of ‘at the same time’.

 Cast on 68 stitches. Divide as explained above, or however you want.

Work 16 rows in 1×1 rib

Charty links: chart 1 chart 2  chart 3 chart 4 chart 5 chart 6 key to charts  

Front of sock: work chart 1 3 times, then chart 2 3 times, then chart 1 once. AT THE SAME TIME:

Back of sock: work chart 3 7 times.

Then…

Front of sock: work chart 1 twice, then chart 5 once. AT THE SAME TIME:

Back of sock: work chart 4 once. Row 30 is the row you start to turn the heel on. Before knitting this row, rearrange the stitches as detailed below.

(The numbering of chart 5 starts at row 13, so you can make sure you’re on the same row on charts 4 and 5)

You will now have 26 stitches on your front needle, and 42 on your back needle. Move 4 stitches from each end of the back needle to the front needle, so you have 34 on each again.

 Heel: work a standard short row heel with wraps or double stitches or your own preferred method of avoiding holes over the 34 stitches on the back needle. For the top part of the heel carry on the rib pattern as in row 30 of chart 4, keeping the ribs going until you’re not working as far as those stitches anymore. For the second half of the heel, just knit. (I will add a line by line heel explanation later, but for now i imagine anyone knitting this knows how to turn a heel or they’ll be mightily lost with my pattern already).

After turning the heel, carry on with the pattern on the top of the foot:

Chart 1 3 times, then chart 2 3 times, then chart 1 3 times. Bottom of foot: knit all stitches. You might want to ktbl for the first and last stitch on the bottom needle on each row to give the edge more definition.

Now move to chart 6. knit row 1 of chart 6 as many times as you need until the sock is 7.5cm (need to check this number) shorter than desired final length, then work the rest of chart 6 on the top of the foot, continuing to knit on the back of the foot. AT THE SAME TIME, every time you make a decrease on the top of the foot, work an increase on the 2nd/2nd to last stitch on the bottom of the foot. you are only working the ribs into the middle at this point, NOT decreasing the size of the sock.

Now you can start to decrease for the toe. All worked in knit stitch.

work a decrease round: k1, ssk, knit to 3 stitches from the end, k2tog, k1. repeat on second needle.

work 3 rounds, work a decrease round

[work 2 rounds, work a decrease round] twice

[work 1 round, work a decrease round] four times

[work a decrease round] six times

12 stitches remain. Graft these using kitchener stitch, or thread the yarn back through them and tighten it, however you prefer to finish your toes.

 And that concludes my first ever knitting pattern. Please please please let me know if there’s any errors or ambiguities.


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yarn pr0n and computer hate

So I got a ravelry account and nik lent me his pop up light tent. Clearly yarn pr0n was going to ensue. Here’s a few pics, there’s tons more in my ravelry stash…and i’ve only photographed a very small proportion of my old crappy acrylic yarn so far…though most of my nice squishy wooly yarn has been done. I’m loving the light tent, I’ve got one bare light set up at the back left, and one with a softbox just in front to the right. I should probably take a photo of my setup and write down the settings so i can recreate it after it’s been packed up, cos i’m liking the results.

The red yarn at the top left is my latest handspun…laceweight, 550m+ for 50g, and its 100% merino, super soft and lovely. No idea what i’m going to do with it, but it’s been added to the collection and will be regularly squished.


Generated by Flickr Album Maker (with a few tweaks from me)

My computer had been getting increasingly crashy recently, so i finally decided to try and fix it, and realised one of my ram modules was broken. So I’ve been running on 512mb, which is ‘okay’ for general browsing and stuff, but just kills the machine when using photoshop. I ran round the house looking in my other machine, and in the old machine dad gave me, and in my stash of random computer bits, but couldn’t find any ddr ram. Then i had a brainwave and stole some out of the machine nik left here. No doubt i will be in trouble when he finds out, but i figured it’ll get more use in this one, seeing as the other only gets used at meets…and it will help me keep my sanity. Oh, and in one of my diagnostic messing around with ram moments, i was trying to put some back in, and it wasn’t aligned properly and my finger slipped and i managed to gouge a hole in my fingertip. Given how very un-sharp ram is, i was pretty impressed at the damage caused. It’s been highly annoying when spinning, as the fine fibres want to catch on the healing wound and mess up my nice smooth yarn.

I added a progress bar thingy over there ->> and it worked first time, so that made me happy. Here’s the socks i’m working on for dad:
dad socks
I’m using Online supersocke I think it’s called…its merino/silk/nylon. Beautifully soft, but horrible and splitty to knit with, and certainly not designed for cables, I did the first couple of cable rounds without a cable needle, but it was too hard, so i’ve reverted to using one. If I’d have had any other sock yarn suitable for man socks, i’d have switched and used this for something plainer, but all my other sock yarns are distinctly girly…I was pushing it enough making socks with cables, trying to use a bright coloured wool would have been too much I think.

I’ve got balls!!!

Today was a very knitty day indeed. I spent this afternoon at my parents’ house with my mum and 3 other knitters at our first ever knitting group meeting. I worked on my sock and taught mum how to turn a heel, and we talked about sheep and pigs and all sorts of things. Then I made a yarn swift out of meccano.

ys1.jpg

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the time it takes to wind balls from skeins. I got a ball winder with my spinning wheel, though it didnt have a bobbin with it…so i discovered a place that sold just the bobbins on ebay, and that made my ball-winding life considerably easier. Unfortunately it either needs two people to do, one of whom gets achy arms, or I need to contort myself into strange positions with the skein wrapped around my knees or neck or something. After stumbling across a blog showing a homemade swift made out of some kids building toy that i’ve never heard of (i’ll add a link to it if i find it again), I realised i could easily make one from meccano…which i knew dad has a case of in the cupboard. It only took about 10 minutes to assemble, and it works wonderfully. So I’ve just spent half an hour or so winding some of my stash into balls.

 yarnballs.jpg

 left to right, top to bottom: Angels and Elehants Sock yarn, shetland wool, colourways candyfloss (1 ball), holly berry (2 balls). Handspun from rovings: red and green laceweight, blue and grey laceweight, pink and purple DK (two balls). Handspun from norfolk horn fleece, green DK, pinky aran, and pink chunky.

And as if that wasn’t exciting enough, I finished the socks for my brother. I found this awesomely orange corriedale roving in my LYS, and decided i would spin it and make some socks for him, as orange is his favourite colour. It was the first time i’d spun anything finer than DK, but it turned out pretty even, and the socks feel nice and soft…though I was cursing his size 9 feet by the end, i’ve never made socks any bigger than a 6 before, and this seemed to take aaaages. timsocks.jpg

Oh, and here’s a couple of other (clicky) pics of the swift (one with monkey’s head in, as she’s found the whole process fascinating). If anyone reading wants any more info as to how it’s made, just give me a shout, though really it’s pretty self explanatory.
yscloseup.jpgysmonkey.jpg

it’s been a long time…

I decided i should blog more about what i’ve been up to…so here goes. This of course is all knitting/spinning related so i can include lovely pictures of pretty things. The first picture is some wool i’ve spun lately. The orange and pink/purple are spun from corriedale tops, the green is from the big pile of Norfolk horn fleeces in my garage which i am slowly managing to wash and card.

merino/silk/alpaca I’ve also spun a lot of beautiful merino, and also a merino/alpaca/silk mix. Unfortunately I knitted them into hats which i gave away without photographing, so a pic of the pile of lovely fibres will have to do for now.

Knitting-wise i’ve been very busy making hats, jumpers, and all sorts of other things, but don’t have photos yet, so here are pics of what i’m working on at the moment…an almost finished sock from a lovely hand dyed yarn from http://www.araucaniayarns.com/ and the very start of a lace scarf based on the knitty pattern Juno Regina in a silk yarn from http://www.fyberspates.co.uk/. Its the first time i’ve knitted proper lace (anything with more than a 4 row repeat) so i am a little scared i’ll make a mistake..so i’m forcing myself to take plenty of breaks and won’t let myself work on it when i’m tired.

WIP sock

lace scarf - just started

In the pic above you can see the pretty stitch markers i made last week out of silver wire and some beads from my stash…much prettier than using loops of waste yarn as i normally do.

 I think i shall try and update this blog regularly with details of what i’m working on…if anything else it will stop me boring my friends with constant knitting talk!