I love knitting socks. Sock yarn is fun and beautifully colored, and socks knit up quickly making them a satisfying project.
October is Socktober according to knitters and you can follow the hashtag #socktober on social media to see the cool projects people are working on.
Need some inspiration? Hang on to your wallet. This post is gonna get spendy.
If, like me, you enjoy Spooky Season, there are some awesome spooky sock patterns that have been recently released.
These Spellbound Socks (Ravelry) by Twin Stitch designs offer two design options. The first is a cat pattern around the cuff, the second is a ghost. For the toe there are two designs as well, Trick or Treat or Hocus Pocus. They can be mismatched as you like.
Personally I think the cat cuff is awesome because you could omit the words on the toes and use it as a year-round gift for the cat lover in your life.
Need yarn for this? The designer recommends Moonglow Yarn Co’s sock sets made specially for this pattern.
NGL, I bought two of them last night: Sweater Weather and Spellbound.
I found another awesome pattern for spooky colorwork, Midnight Mischief. You can find it on Etsy or Ravelry.
For these I’m going to use skeins in my stash, Victoria in Witchy Woman by Adelaide Fiber Company and Sturdy Sock by Northern Bee Studios in Eggplant.
If you aren’t up for a new project, but want something spooky for your knitting, may I recommend these stitch stoppers? They are super cute and keep the stitches from slipping off your needles when you aren’t working on your project.
If you’re into socks, but not necessarily into spooky stuff, I really recommend 52 Weeks of Socks by Laine.
The patterns are intermediate and there’s a great blend of colorwork and texture. Here’s a pair of Bembe socks I made using Long Dog Yarn in Bounce Sock colorway Love Story.
Some people have asked where I got my sock blockers, and the answer is here.
Finally, here are a couple tips I’ve found useful for sock construction.
If you’re doing a lot of of colorwork, like in the Midnight Mischief socks, you will need to carry long floats. Here is a great online tutorial for that.
If you get holes when you pick up your heel flap stitches, this tutorial involving a crochet hook is a great technique for avoiding that.
What about you?
Are you participating in Socktober? What are you knitting?
I finished a sockhead hat that had been lingering in a project bag since Nov 2021. I grabbed the bag before a drive thinking it might have socks in it (nope). Tellybeanknits has a new spidery cowl pattern called venomous which is grabbing me.
https://www.tellybeanknits.com/pattern-shop/venomous
I don’t knit too many socks, but I’m doing Sweater-tober (if that counts). I’ve been working on a belated bday present for a while, integrating a Northumberland Jersey panel with a 3×1 rib. The original sweater called for a cable pattern, but I’m not comfortable decreasing in a complicated stitch pattern yet. Anyone have any suggestions for tutorials or articles on the subject? I’m also working on another belated bday present for my Mom. Christmas is, of course, right around the corner, so there will be more articles to come.
Ooooooh might I recommend two designers? https://www.ravelry.com/designers/virginia-sattler-reimer Virgina Sattler-Reimer and https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/barb-brown-designs/patterns Barb Brown.
Also my book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns has both patterns specifically designed for handpaints as well as technical info about pooling and other common issues.
I haven’t ventured into knitting socks yet, but this post makes me want to try out some new skills! (Maybe I’ll start out with just some basic socks first, though!)
Oooh, that ‘venomous’ cowl is adorable! I knit socks but only do toe-up. I wish more designers offered both cuff-down and toe-up versions of their socks, I find toe-up so much easier to shape to my feet.
I enjoy drooling over these yarns and projects even though I do not knit or crochet. Happy making!
I’m supposed to be taking part in Socks of the Princess Bride KAL, but I’m procrastinating as per usual. Sock 3, You Killed My Father, just dropped. Maybe I can sneak a.cast on this weekend?https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/socks-of-the-princess-bride/patterns (4-sock pattern collection for $6 with code PRINCESS until the end of October!)
My I’m-too-tired-to-make-decisions knitting is Joji Locatelli’s Rafa’s Hat. (I love love love that pattern!) I’m making my second—and finally making use of the Rowan Hemp Tweed I bought on sale in Paprika. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rafas-hat
I’m so glad to not be knitting with fingering yarn…I’m pretty sure the knitting slump I experienced this spring had something to do with the fact that I was trying to work four projects in fingering weight yarn as well as fighting the elements daily. (We had so much snow that the ploughs had barely dealt with the most recent load before the streets filled again!) I’m restricting myself to only one fingering weight project at a time…or I’ll try to? Anyway, any socks I’ll be making will be at least sport weight.
Those are all gorgeous patterns, unfortunately a bit beyond my abilities. I just finished my first sock ever a few weeks ago. Before, I’d only done wraps and cowls, mostly. Had to unravel the toe-up sock b/c it ended up being too long. I’m going to try again, though, this time with better instructions. I want and need more custom-fit warm socks for winter – the curse of having really large feet and thick legs…
@Brigit this is one of my favorite patterns for learning socks! (Ravelry) https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/easy-peasy-socks-for-first-timers
@Brigit I made four pairs of socks “for myself” before I was happy with the fifth. The first three were way too big for my feet, the fourth were a good size but were knit at too loose a gauge.
I have one yarn I’ve been experimenting on different sock techniques with where I trust myself to know what I’m doing. It knits up at sport weight. Fingering/light fingering yarn? I don’t know WTF I’m doing! I don’t know why TF I’m torturing myself with fingering weight yarn!
Seriously, work a couple of pairs of DK/worsted weight socks to learn the fiddly bits of sock knitting, as well as how you like your socks. VeryPink Knits has good patterns with video tutorials teaching all kinds of methods, just pick what you’re interested in.
Or join the above mentioned Socks of the Princess Bride KAL—Lisa makes great patterns and has tutorials for the fiddly bits… and if you want to leave out the fiddly bits then that’s all right too. The Tru Wuv toe-up socks are basically plain vanilla if that’s what you want. There are lots of sock newbies taking part and having success—and fun! (Just because I’m procrastinating doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about, this is my third(?) Lisa K. Ross sock KAL.)
@Elyse and @ReadKnitSnark: thanks for all the pointers, I will definetely look into this! Sock yarn here in Germany is (exclusively?) categorized by ply: 4-, 6- and 8-ply. So worsted is 8-ply and fingering is 4-ply? The US yarn categories are not widely used here, so there’s a lot of “translation” work to be done. For the actual sock knitting, fortunately there are a lot of YT instructions out there – I need to “see” how it’s done, can’t work well with written instructions.
@Brigit Regia 4-ply is considered either light fingering or fingering on Ravelry. (If it’s 420m/100g it’s considered fingering, but if it’s 425m/100g it’s considered light fingering. Yeah, I don’t know what the difference is either! I’ve considered raging about it on the Regia group, but that would just be impolite.)
Regia 6-ply and Regia 8-ply I consider sport and DK, but that’s just my own feel for things so don’t take my word for it.
DK, Worsted, and Aran are labels imposed by yarn companies that don’t always make a lot of sense when comparing yarn to yarn. The designer Skeindeer Knits will give yarn suggestions for her designs, and some of them will be DK while others will be worsted. (See https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/otra-worsted-pullover.) Also, I think aran is a label used by some European companies while US companies use worsted. I think? IIRC?
(Take this all with a grain of salt, I might be typing out of my butt.)
Also, in old patterns when they say “use X amount of knitting yarn,” said knitting yarn is what is considered 4-ply/sock weight/fingering weight these days. That’s also where we get DK… Double Knitting… a thickness we get by holding 4-ply/fingering double.