So I knit a lot of socks because they fit in the bag easily and they’re easy to mess about with. Also, they make you feel like a proper knitter.

This is almost all of the socks I’ve knit and represent long months of accumulated sock-wisdom.

1 = the first pair I ever knitted, way back when. The wool was self-patterning, probably opal, and a gift from Maura. It lasted surprising well, despite the socks themselves being too loose. They were knit using magic loop, but the smallest long circular I could find was still 3.something mm, so…

What I learnt: Socks are surprisingly easy, it is possible to cast on too loosely (I know, I was as shocked as you!), tiny needles are good.

I used the Knitty cut-your-teeth socks as the basic pattern (minus the dominos at the top and the colour changes) since my old knitting crew was halfway round the world and that worked really well. I recommend it as a basic set of instructions quite highly.

2 = my first toe-ups! Knit using hand-dyed blue-faced Leicester, which also wears quiet well. Doesn’t mean you don’t still end up darning them, as you can see below.

I’m actually quite fond of darning, which is handy given how much of it I have to do.

What I learnt: actually having the right tension is good (a shocker, I know), double-pointeds are fiddly when they’re 2.75mm and may break, but aren’t any more difficult to use than magic loop and look cool, like you’re knitting with a hedgehog. Also, toe-up might be easier, but it’s not as structured as cuff down. Also, it’s hard to cast off loosely enough.

3) = Me experimenting. I wanted to try something new, so these ones used a waffle pattern, which didn’t really work. It got kind of lost and didn’t suit the self-striping.

See? You can barely see it at all.

What I learnt = I do find toe-up less satisfying than cuff-down, merino is nice to work with but better for bedsocks than socks to wear with shoes and nice patterns don’t always work with nice yarn.

4) Jaywalkers, knit specifically for my mum to wear with her ski-boots.

And here they are on my mum’s feet:

Firstly, I really like this pattern. The bias keeps it tighter and they stay up better, don’t stretch as much, and are actually more wearable than a lot of the regular sock I’ve knit. They also take longer (more stitches to knit), but are easy to do thoughtlessly.

What I learnt: Bias rocks, as do very tiny needles.

5) Self-patterning, afterthought socks.

By this time I was kind of fed up with the endless darning, so I mostly knit these ones to see if they’d be easier to whip the heels and toes off and new ones on. I also wanted to try socks that would stay up better, but still work with more interesting yarn which was a partial success. K3, P1 ribbing is fairly subtle, but it does throw self-patterning off a little.

What I learnt: Self-patterning is fun, but limiting. After-thought toes and heels kind of bore me. I’m so lazy, when I’m done I want to be done, you know? No going back, no filling in the gaps, done.

EXTRA: About this time, maybe before, I knit these Potomas socks using some yarn I had to use up, Australian sock Yarn from the natural dye studios (ebay.co.uk)

The pattern is great, the yarn… okay. Rougher than I was used to, but not especially itchy or anything. Not particularly suited to the pattern, but… well, better than it looks in the pictures. I probably wouldn’t use this yarn again, just because it is that bit more itchy. Not a problem for me or my nearest, but a lot of people are more sensitive than my lot. The pattern is based on twisted ribbing, with increase/decrease to get that shell. This picture shows the effect of that ribbing better:

A good gift pattern, actually, in that it looks fairly complicated and is nice and stretchy so you don’t need to worry about how thin or fat their calves are.

What I learnt: I vastly prefer knitting socks for others. I like knitting patterns. Stitchmarkers are our friends, really a lot. It also confirmed what I’d kind of suspected – patterns are easier to do then to understand.

EXTRA

I’m pretty sure I knit another pair about now and gave them to Meg. Mostly, I was trying out different toes. I like toes to be more rounded, but that can take longer (more rows) to do.

What I learnt: Rounded toes look nicer and fit most feet better, but they can take a while to do. Other people have bigger feet than me.

6) Cablenet, using gorgeous yarn from Lisa Souza.

Firstly, I rate Lisa Souza’s yarns really highly. I love the colours, I love the feel (mostly, with the usual qualifier for blends), I think the prices are reasonable, they’re delivered in good time, they’re nice to use and don’t split too easily. You do have to wind them in a ball yourself, but that takes, what, ten minutes with company? No problem.

Secondly, this was my first heavily cabled pattern and was pretty fiddly in bits, so one to do when you’re confident about twisting stitches. Thirdly, it’s knit on tiny, tiny, cramp-your-hand needles (2.0mm) and takes masses more stitches to compensate for the cabling, plus there’s a lot of purling, so they’re not quick knits. They’re a lot easier to do in the round then the flat bits on the heels.

Also the structure of the sock is kind of strange and suits feet with high arches and pointed toes, for someone whose mother was considerably less diligent than mine about wearing shoes that gave your toes room to grow.

Good thing these were going for my mother and not me, then. They knit up tightly, which is another advantage. She’s been wearing them a lot, partly because she feels that they’re more robust than some of the other patterns, partly because they match a jumper she likes wearing and they haven’t needed darning yet.

The downside is, she’s been muttering terrible thoughts about socks with sandals, so she can show them off. I know she knows better than that!

What I learnt: I do like single cable. Like, a lot.

7) Potamus (now finished, but I don’t have a photo of them yet)

Again, probably not the best yarn for the pattern, so it comes up patchy more than anything, but nice to knit with and it is a good pattern.

The current set of socks I’m working on are experimental and are going in another post. I just need to make sure I have pictures for it. Basically, I’m working on toe-up socks with a cuff-down style structure, trying to figure out a flexible set of instructions.