Knee-High Socks

My knitting teacher gave me two skeins of a beautiful, bold colored sock yarn and a book on how to knit toe-up socks.  So, I just had to knit some toe-up socks!

I really like this method for socks.  The toe-up cast-on took a little while for me to understand, but since pretty much all my knitting projects need to be started three times, that wasn’t much of a big deal.  Once I got the hang of it, I loved it.  For one thing, it’s much easier to try the sock on as you go and determine when the foot is long enough and when the sock is tall enough.

There are multiple toe-up cast-ons in the book.  I like Judy’s Magic Cast-On.  First off, who doesn’t like magic?  And second, the others seemed even more complicated!  The book also includes instructions for different types of sock toes.  I chose the Shaped Round Toe because, as the book says, it’s good for “wide flat toe footprint(s),” and well, that sounded just like me.

The design on the socks is a fairly simple rib, but I still used the pattern from the book to help with sizing, increases and decreases.  The style is called Old-School Knee-Highs and has contrast heel and toe with athletic sock style banding at the top.  I chose a plain black for the contrast color, and although I attempted to purchase yarn of the same weight, it was a bit heavier.  Stronger heels and toes by accident!

This sock pattern uses the after-thought heel.  I think it’s pretty neat, though I didn’t wait until I was completely done with the socks to put the heels in.  It’s difficult to try on socks without heels.

I had some issues with adjusting measurements, despite the book’s excellent instructions and worksheets.  I’m just shaped so funny and my addition is even funnier.  But I still wound up with some really neat socks in the end.

Unfortunately - bad knitter - I forgot to save the yarn label, so I cannot tell you what type of yarn it is.  But, I can tell you that the book is Toe-Up! by Chrissy Gardiner.