hearty-stripy socks

Three facts about the intended recipient of these socks:

• She gets cold feet quite a lot


• Her favourite colour is brown. Can you tell?!?


• It's her birthday on Friday. By which time she is extremely unlikely to have a completed pair of socks.

I am winging these, so here is what i did, mostly for my benefit so i can remember when i have to make sock 2 - the sequel:

*now updated with full instructions and photo in case other hapless fools want to try*

Hearty-stripy socks

Toe up socks. Stitch counts for foot size worked out using this universal sock pattern. I used 3 colours - for the patterned bits, about 30g each of 2 different colours of Cygnet wool rich 4 ply (brown and cream). CC - smallish amount of leftover yarn from previous socks, for the toe, heel and cuff.

Cast on

• 11 stitches on each of 2 needles using judy's magic cast on, in CC (oatmeal colour leftover from the last sock adventure). So 22 st. cast on in total.


• Inc. 4 stitches each other round, one st. from end on each side until 66 stitches on needles. Finish toe section with a non-increasing knit row.

Foot

• Work in hearty stripey pattern. Here is the chart. It's a 6-stitch repeating pattern, but i have put 2 repeats in so you can see it properly.


• No weaving used for floats - this helps to keep the socks stretchy


• Both brown and white yarns carried up side for added laziness


• No jogless-stripe-faffery used. I have enough to worry about trying to keep the tension even enough to prevent the sock resembling a mini-eggbox.

Heel

• Switch to CC


• Short rows. Knit flat to one stitch from the end, wrap and turn. Then purl to one stitch from end, wrap and turn. Next row, knit to 2 st from end, wrap and turn. Keep knitting one less stitch every knit row until 13 stitches remain unwrapped in the middle. Then start knitting wrapped stitches until back to normal stitch count again. (see universal sock pattern
  for more details on short row heels)

Leg

I had to put some increases in here because the stranded fabric that my limited skill produced doesn't stretch very well, making it something of a challenge to get your foot in otherwise.

• First all-round single colour row after heel, [k6, m1]* around. (e.g. row 1,2, or 3 of chart)


• Next row, k around, then m1 at the end to get up to a multiple of 6 stitches for the pattern (78 st. total)


• Knit 3 pattern-stripes


• In CC, k1 p1 rib until scunnered, then cast off