A Tale of Two Socks

I made new socks:

About two months ago, in a fit of "I can't take this sweater anymore" (sound familiar?), I started a sock with some fun Panda Wool, a bamboo/merino sock yarn from Crystal Palace, in colorway "Cinnabar".  Sounds yummy, and is a good linguistic fit for the colors of the yarn.  Anyway, sock one was finished in about 3 days, plus another couple of days to undo the toe, add more length to the lace, and redo the toe to my preferred fit.

Then came sock two.  The knitting took a few weeks, rather than days.  It was a great travel project, the lace design being so easy to memorize.  Upon completion of the knitting, however,  poor sock two was left to consider its future on our coffee table for almost a month (yes, on top of the month-or-so to knit it).  Sock one was draped over the back of the sofa, mocking sock two and looking smug.  Even the dog wasn't interested in sock two, in spite of it's proximity to said dog's sock-lovin' mouth.

Last week I finally grafted sock two's toe.  Then I washed, patted out, and dried the pair.  I used the Lacy Mock-Cable pattern and modified it to more or less match the height of my the socks my sock pal made for me this summer (they are SOOOOOO great!).  I also made a little adjustment to the lace pattern, substituting [ K1, sl2, pass knitted st over slipped stitches] for [K3, then pass the first of these k sts over the last 2 and drop it] in Round 5.

I put them on, modeled them in the sunshine, admiring their lacy/cabled goodness:

So, imagine my horror when, at the end of a single evening of wear, one sock was sagging around my ankle, both of them felt loose in the foot, and they generally felt Way   TOo      BIG!!!

Sigh.

I don't know if it's the yarn, the fact that once again I didn't bother swatching (it's a sock, after all, which seems like a swatch in and of itself!) or that I just knit it too big.  I'll probably just go buy some elastic thread and hand sew it through the cuff so that they'll stay up.  I really liked knitting the pattern, so I figure I'll try again with another - higher wool - content yarn.  Will that help?

P.s.  In perusing the pattern for the Round 5 notes, I saw that they are for a size 7 - 10 foot.  I wear size 6.5 or 7 shoes.  Clearly I need to make these not only shorter than indicated, but narrower as well.  Hhhhhhmmmmmm.

Comments

[Katie]

I love the socks! And I'm praying for you as you work through whatever it is that you are currently going through. I'm glad you're back to blogging, too. :) See you in Arygos.

[drlaura andersson]

hi,
the socks are lovely!

i'm "sockguru" for Crystal Palace yarns and would love to show your sock pic and link to your blog from our blog. email me with permission
and this site link if it's ok?

for better sock fit, you only need to do 2 things. get your ankle circumference and the circumference for foot in about middle of arch.

example: i had a VERY badly broken ankle - skiied our front porch in a black ice storm.. and have 9 in ankle; with a 9 in foot length,
and a preferred sock length of 9.25 in. my foot is only 8.75 in wide
so the sock has to be narrower on foot.
ok, i typically knit at 8 spi, and with 8 spi then 72 st is my most common cast on. anything bigger or smaller is likely to be problematic, unless it's highly cabled and needs extra. then of course, lace is stretchy so will make a BIGGER sock for given # of stitches [all those holes]

in your case, you probably would want no more than a 64 in cast on.
you do NOT have to swatch separately from the sock. just measure across 2 in if you have stockinette and see what it tells you.
swatching IS critical, even for a sock, but need not be that tedious if you're careful.
curious. if you lay the two socks out, how closely identical are they? do you have a consistent and uniform self-=gauge?

anyway. the lack of fit is likely not the yarn, not the knitting, not you, just you knit for a bigger foot and with all the talented change this and change that, you're ready to knit for your OWN measurements.

blessings, :L