I think handmade socks are the height of luxury. Maybe that’s because I’m a Pisces and have very sensitive feet. I hate anything bunching up inside my shoes and I love the added warmth and coziness of hand-knit socks.
I don’t know what my Mother was thinking, but socks were among my very first knitting projects. I think they were intended to be a Christmas present for someone. I remember going to the dry goods/hobby store in Kalispell, Montana when I was about 14 to pick up a pattern and some Paton’s sock yarn in a dingy shade of brown. It was and is, to be fair, a decent yarn, pure, scratchy wool with a touch of nylon for durability, but hardly the fancy-schmancy kettle dyed fantasies of today. Adding a set of Susan Bates Quicksilver double-points, we were good to go.
The results were predictable. When my Mother moved from Montana to Michigan 20 years later, she packed and moved that self-same, eternally unfinished pair of socks, I suppose in the vain hope that I would someday make honest socks of them.
15 years would pass before I took another crack at sock knitting. My knitting guru, Bette Bornside of Bette Bornside Company in New Orleans unwittingly introduced me to self-patterning sock yarn and created an addict.
The pattern she passed on to me (with a few changes) is the basis for the one I’ve posted on my Pattern Page. It’s a standard, top-down, gusset-heel sock pattern and if it’s not the same pattern my Mother gave me along with the brown Paton’s I would be deeply surprised. It’s a great pattern and has served me well. However, times have changed.
Browsing through Wendy Johnson’s scrumptious books on toe-up sock knitting, I was bitten. I decided to try a pair with my accidental Malabrigo purchase of last week. Can I just say it? This is a revelation!
Though I couldn’t quite get with Wendy’s double-wrap technique, I found toe-up knitting to be much, much faster than traditional top-down methods. I am in the process of working the short-row heel based on this fabulous demo I found on YouTube. Thank-you Charisa! You’ve changed my life!
