January 11, 2012

  • Knitting a Sock

    I spent a long time today staring at a page of internet instructions, wondering how they would ever work in real life. Knit two-thirds of the way through the row, and then turn it around? What happens to the other third of the stitches? But eventually, I felt was convinced that it wasn't entirely foolery, so I decided to try it out.

    I've never knitted a sock before. It seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world, but that's only true for a sock that's just a cylinder with a closed end. An actual sock forms a weird L-shape, and that made the instructions a very nontrivial complicated mass of confusing.

    The knitted sock actually has six different parts: cuff, heel, gusset, instep, sole, and toe. Each is knitted a different way. For once, I took the Internet's advice, and knitted a small practice sock before trying an actual one. I'm glad I did. I learned several things that I'll do more neatly now, and two things that I'll do differently in the actual sock. It turns out that for something as narrow as a sock, twice-as-thick ribbing (vertical stripes) in the cuff aren't as pretty, and also, I'm not going to tie an large ungainly finishing knot on the outside this time.

    I was really happy that it came out sock-shaped though. That's happy. I'm confident enough to go acquire some blue sock yarn and start on an actual one tomorrow.