Sock Practice

I’m not so patiently awaiting my order of Merino super wash wool yarn and knitting needles from Lion Brand Yarns. I’ve never knitted before, but my sister in law convinced me over Thanksgiving that I should definitely try it. So, I decided to take on socks as my first project. Does this contradict everything that salty old guy at the knitting shop told me about doing nothing but swatching until I perfect the basic knit and purl stitches? Yes… Yes it does.

But, I’ve also been told that socks are super easy to do on circular needles, and that they’re a reasonable starter project. And while I intend to swatch, I wanted to be working toward a finished product.

In the meantime, I had a bunch of left over acrylic yarn from making Christmas ornaments and I had socks on the brain…so I decided to crochet some sock booties.

I learned a few things in the process.

1) My guage is always tighter and smaller than the pattern’s suggested guage. I end up tweaking it by adding stitches or rows as the project requires for sizing.

2) Acrylic yarn is mostly garbage. Don’t get me wrong– It has it’s place in the crafting world, but I don’t think I’d ever want clothing made from it.

3) I’ve gotten better at reading patterns! This I was told would come with practice, and I’m happy to say that 5 years after deciding to truly hone my fiber crafting skills, I’ve been able to graduate from “easy” and “beginner” patterns to the more difficult “intermediate” patterns.

4) Crochet is fast, and wonderful, but the stitches are bulky and use a lot of yarn. The place where the foot of the sock joins the heel has an odd feel to it, like the heel is a little pocket. Depending on how much posterior arch support you like in a sock, this might be a good thing. I didn’t mind it, but my husband was not a fan.

5) Fiber crafting is an art form. And as such, a pattern is merely a suggestion, to be artistically interpreted according to taste and desired outcome. Instead of using smaller gauge hooks for the heel and toe, I opted for the smaller hook throughout to create a tighter stitch and have a sock with fewer “holes”. I also replaced the FPDC, DC (front post double crochet, double crochet) sequence of the pattern with a FPHDC, RPHDC (front post half double crochet, rear post half double crochet) for the cuff of the sock. Again, this was 1) to use less yarn, 2) to have a greater contrast between the “ribs” of the sock cuff, and 3) because I’m the boss and I said so.

All in all, I think it turned out nicely, and now I’ll get started on it’s brother!

Someone, if you have the knowledge, please share with me how to crochet socks 2 at a time– I’ve read it can be done, but haven’t found a resource telling me how.

Happy fiber crafting!