The Right Sock

Begun: 12/24/07

Finished: 1/4/08

Pattern: Sort of a mongrel. The base is SKS’s Class Sock, p. 29, increased to a 48-stitch cast-on. The toe follows The Sock Knitter’s Companion: Step-by-Step Help Sock. The sole is reverse stockinette, which I had to work out for myself.

Size Intended: Women’s size 9

Needles: Two size 3 circular needles for the ribbing, the heel, and the toe, one size 5 circular and three size 5 double-points for the rest (I lost one of my size 5 dpns! ^_^;;;)

Yarn: Crystal Palace Puffin, which is 100% polyester fleece ribbon, in Jet Black

Gauge: 5.5 stitches

Cast on: 48 stitches

Amount of ribbing: 1.5 inches

Leg length: 7 inches to top of heel

Comments: When I first started to take up sock knitting a few months ago and recruited Joh as my Director of Socks, I asked her what kind of socks she wanted: Lacy ones? Multicolored? Texture patterns? Humorous socks? NOT humorous socks? Positively grim socks? She responded that now she wanted grim socks because they sounded funny.

So I set out to make grim socks. As I told Joh, these socks are grim on three counts:

1. They are grim in color.
2. Although in a heavier weight yarn, they are the same design as the socks our father wore to work, black, corporate, unquestionably the grimmest socks I have ever seen.
3. They were knit while watching the latter seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street. Surely there is nothing grimmer than watching Callie Thorne try to carry the dramatic weight of Melissa Leo.

The yarn was chosen because it was a heavy weight yarn that did not contain animal fibers. It’s also machine washable and dryable. The local yarn store owner may speak scathingly of the “wash-and-wear crowd,” but I think a present is hardly a present if it involves major difficulty in upkeep. The yarn feels a little grippy at first, but I soon got used to it. With size 5 needles, it knits up to a nice, dense but soft sock. I wish Crystal Palace would realize from the sold-out status of Jet Black that the yarn is not just for babies and release some real colors, but as of Spring 2008, it’s still going to be just pastels, except for Jet Black and Wild Lime (lime is quite probably my least favorite color in the universe).

Because the yarn was so bulky, I did the sole in reverse stockinette, putting the smooth knit side against the foot and the bumpy purl side out. I decided to do this based on a comment made by the author on p. 50 of SKS, but I had to work out for myself the details of how to accomplish it. For future reference (which I will need on the very next pair of socks, also being knit in Puffin), start purling where it says to knit and knitting when it says to purl on the heel turn, through the entire sole, and through the underside of the toe. When the pattern calls for ssk, purl two stitches together. When the pattern calls for two stitches knit together, purl the first stitch of the two to be decreased, slip the second stitch knitwise, and then passed the slipped stitch over the previous (purled) stitch. To be sure it’s right, check the inside of the sock to see if the stitches lie correctly from the knitted view. Note also that I have more trouble with ladders when the last stitch on the first needle and the first stitch on the second needle are both purled. I redid a large portion of sock to fix one particularly bad point in a ladder. I also think the yarn may have something to do with the ladder trouble. I’ve ordered another size 5 circular, and hopefully that will take care of some of that problem.

By the way, while turning the heel is still a challenge, by far the hardest part of a sock is the gussett. (For non-knitters, the gussett is the part of the sock where the heel is done and you’re narrowing the opening down to the width of the foot.) I did the gussett on the first Grim Sock about five times before I got it acceptable.

I think the toes are still too pointy, although I haven’t any feedback yet from Joh on that point. Maybe it’s just that I have short toes so the toes of my feet look boxy to me, but the sock patterns look to me like they call for too much tapering. Although it means more Kitchener stitch, I think I’ll go with a longer foot and shorter blunter toe from now on. (For those of you who don’t knit, Kitchener stitch—aka grafting, aka weaving—is a stitch done with raw ends of knitting, to make it look like the pieces were one continuous bit of knitting. I think it was invented to make knitters doubly glad that the project is over. It is quite the bear, especially as far as tension goes, but if that’s what it takes to make better toes, I’ll just have to get better with Kitchener stitch.)

Joh has already road-tested these socks, and they seem to be a success. I hope so because the experience is being called upon immediately for the next pair of socks.

Begun: 11/30/07

Finished: 12/17/07

Pattern: “Four-Stitch Ribbing Patterns” in Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks (hereafter, SKS, p. 34, and using the Corded Rib stitch, p. 38, for the instep pattern.

Size Intended: Women’s size 9 foot

Needles: Two circular size 3 needles for the ribbing, heel, and toe, and two circular size 4 needles for everywhere else

Yarn: Bernat Gloucester (which tells those of you who know yarn how long that has been in my stash!), which is 100% unmercerized cotton, worsted weight. The main color is natural, with the contrasting colors being lavender, light rose, and mauve.

Gauge: I forgot to make a note of it. I’m guessing about 5-6 stitches per inch, given the cast on I chose.

Cast on: 48 stitches

Amount of ribbing: 1.5 inches

Leg length: I forgot to note it, which is stupid because that’s one of the things I want Joh to express an opinion on. I believe five inches.

Heel-to-toe length: Again I forgot to measure. I was aiming for ten inches.

Comments: I made several changes to my approach. First, I used two circular needles rather than four double-points. I find I have less trouble with ladders (stitches being too loose or too tight at the point the needles change in each round, thereby creating a line along the sock vertically) with the circulars. I also have less trouble with stitches falling off an end. I definitely need nickel-plated ones; I tried regular painted metal for part of one of the socks and developed a blister on my index finger. I ended up (by the time the socks were done) with needles from Knitpicks.com, with a 24″ length cable (16″ was too short for my comfort). The slipperiness is wonderful! Although I found the advice maddening when I first was trying to find tools, I do agree that each knitter should try a lot of needles until they find what works best for them. I must say I prefer KnitPicks.com’s size 3 fixed needles to the size 4 Options needles. I have some trouble with the stitches catching over the connection to the cable and some trouble with the cable disconnecting on the Options needles. I wish KnitPicks made fixed 24″ cable needles for size 4 and 5 needles, but clearly that’s not about to happen.

The yarn was from my stash, more from the afghan I had made. Everyone agrees that 100% cotton yarn is poor for socks because it is so inelastic, so I expect these socks to suffer from sock slouch. I used it because I had it in my stash and could use it while I searched for some other yarn to use. (For most of my odyssey in search of sock yarn, see the relevant post in the Wrong Dog Blog, Challenges in Ethical Knitting; Or, How to Do No Harm?)

I tried to follow the book’s pattern strictly, to see what I thought of it. First, I’m not sure I turned the heel right. In more than one place, the author says, “When working the last 2 decrease rows of the heel turn, you may end with a decrease; there will be no additional stitch to knit or purl. This is not an error.” I did have an additional stitch at the end, so that may be an error, but I ended up with the right number of stitches so I continued on.

I used smaller needles on the ribbing, heel, and toe on the advice of other knitters: for the ribbing, the owner of my favorite local yarn store, and for the heel and the toe, SKS. For the ribbing, using a smaller needle makes it tighter, so it holds the sock up better. For the heel and the toe, using a smaller needle makes the fabric denser and therefore more durable, and Joh says she has trouble with the toes wearing out over her big toe. I think, though, that a difference of two sizes would be better. Maybe it’s just my very loose knitting, but I didn’t see much difference in density with only one size. I’ll try that on the next socks.

I also wove the end of the yarn in quite a bit on one of the toes, to make it more durable yet, but since that seemed to make it much stiffer, I didn’t do that on the other. A comparison of comfort and durability would be much appreciated. Another thing I’d like feedback on, Joh: the toe shape of these socks. As I showed you, the toe of the Girlie Socks is more pointed than the toe of the Bed Socks, and I wasn’t sure whether that would be more or less comfortable.

I picked up gusset stitches the “plain” way rather than the “pretty” way on this pair of socks because using the smaller needles on the heel (and probably using an inelastic yarn) didn’t allow for the pretty way. I may be forced to keep to the plain way, if I continue using smaller needles for the heel.