Just a simple little blog to talk about my knitting, my cats, my wonderful son, and perhaps other things in my life.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Socks Outline

OK, I am far from the best knitter around, but I did make 6 pairs of socks for Christmas one year. I had a very basic sock pattern and a copy of Folk Socks. The socks were all the same style, I just used the measurements of each person to make them a perfect fit.

Someone on the Knitlist asked how to make socks for a man with Big Feet. This is the basic outline that I sent her based on the experiences I had making all those socks in one year for so many different sized feet. The key is to get all the right measurements and a good gauge swatch. That pesky gauge swatch again, it sneaks in everywhere.

  1. Take some basic measurements:
    -     ankle bone to the floor (for the heel flap)
    - around the ankle and it's narrowest (for the leg of the sock)
    - around the ball of the foot (usually about the same as around the ankle, for the foot part of the sock)
    - with the heel against a wall, the length of the foot using the tip of the longest toe as the end point (so you know how long to knit the foot of the sock)
    - height from floor that the sock should go up the leg (this minus the heel flap is how long to knit the top of the sock)
  2. Do a circular gauge swatch with the yarn and needles of choice.
  3. Cast on (stitches per inch)*(around ankle measurement)
  4. Knit till you have gone long enough for the top.
  5. Then do your heel flap usually using 1/2 the stitches of the sock
    -     Knit until you have reached the (ankle bone to floor) length
  6. Do the usual tricky heel turn of choice.
  7. Pickup stitches for the gusset.
  8. Decrease down to the number of stitches that would go around the ball of the foot.
  9. *Knit until 2 inches before the length of the foot
  10. Finish with your toe of choice.

* If you choose a "long toe" you may want to stop knitting 3 inches before the end.

You can always cast on a few less stitches in order to have a tighter sock, if you do the body of the sock in rib the exact amount of stitches or a few more will be fine. Adjust as needed to get the result you want :)

There you go, your very own personalized basic sock for any size feet in 10 easy steps :)

Posted by: Justy at 9:09 p.m. |
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