Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Cherry Rib Socks Complete At Last!


Cherry Rib Socks Complete
Originally uploaded by sunasak
I'd been churning out socks like crazy while riding the bus every day, but this pair took the entire time I was unemployed, plus my week of teaching software to get done! of course, I made the wedding shawl and all those dishcloths while also working on these. I really like these a lot, though, and I am easily amused at how much they shrink up when not on a leg or sock blocker--this is surely a stretchy rib. I'd probably put more beads in it if I did it again, the two little bunches at the top don't show up much.

How I Made It

This is not really a pattern, but more of a recipe, so if you want to try a similar sock, you can do it!

Materials: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Cherry Blossom colorway, size 0 needles (normal people could use a 1.5 or 2).

Technique: Toe up using magic loop.

Toe: Use your favorite toe cast on: figure 8, magic cast-on, etc. Increase normally until you have 32 stitches on each side.

Foot: Put the pattern on the instep and do plain stockinette.

Instep pattern:
Row 1: K1, p2, [YO, K2tog, P1, SSK, YO, p2] until one stitch is left, K1
Row 2: K1, p2, [K5, p2] until the last stitch, K1
Repeat these two rows.

Start gusset increases about 2.5" before the end of your foot. I used left- and right-leaning lifted increases one stitch in from the edge. You could do M1 or Kfb increases.

Then do a heel. You could do a short-row heel, an afterthought heel, or the one I did, Wendy Johnson's flapped heel with gusset (you can find it on her website or in one of her lovely patterns sold on the Loopy Ewe website--I don't want to type out her copyright protected pattern). If you are using the flapped heel from Wendy's site, when you have 54 stitches, do one more round with an increase in the center so you have 55.

When the heel is done decrease back to 32 stitches on the heel side and start the pattern for the leg. What I did was make a row of twisted stitches going up the side, and to facilitate that, I moved one stitch over on each side, so the two you are twisting are together. So on each half of the sock, you'd to a right twist (or left if you want), then the same pattern as for the instep, omitting the final K1.

Keep going in this very stretchy rib pattern until you reach the desired length on the leg. On the last few rows, I inserted a bead in the center of the k5 in each pattern group. That's optional.

Bind off using your favorite stretchy bind off.

1 comment:

  1. Nice looking socks. Thanks for sharing your pattern.

    ReplyDelete

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