Socks of many techniques 2: The toe

I forgot in my last post on this topic why overspun yarn isn't a bad thing for socks. Overspinning makes the yarn much tougher, more resilient. And thus really quite suitable for socks.

These socks are going to make that handspun go as far as possible, so the 'body' of the sock will be in handspun, with the toes, heels and cuff in some the onion-dyed Lang merino.

I usually use a short row toe for my socks. I like this toe because by the time you have to put things on a circular needle you've got lots of stitches and enough knitted-stuff to weigh them down a bit. I find magic cast-on impossibly fiddly - too few stitches, too hard to wrangle them without getting tangled.

But I recently finished my first pair of top-down socks, and I've decided that I really do like the look of a toe with those nice neat decreases better than the short rows. But I want to use every single scrappet of handspun, which means I need to knit the socks toe up.


Solution? Easy. Provisional cast on, then knit the toe down, and graft the end closed (just like in this picture). Then unzip the provisional cast, and start knitting the foot from the toe up. I get my neat looking toe, I get to use up all my yarn, and I don't have to wrangle small numbers of stitches on a circular needle.

For those that suffer second-sock syndrome, this method of starting socks has another benefit. You can knit one toe, straight after the other. Because the provisional cast on keeps the toe from unravelling until you're ready to use it, you can do both toes before going any further. Just store the toe you're not knitting onto somewhere safe until you need it. Then, when you're all "Ugh! I sooooo can't be bothered to do the second sock!" you can pull out your pre-made toe, and you're already on your way. No fiddly cast on or anything, you're already about a sixth of the way through, and on to the good bit (if your sock has a fancy stitch pattern and you regard knitting the fancy stitch as a good thing).

Tropical Island socks/ Socks of Many Techniques

I'm on a massive handspun kick right now. I'm not even going to tell you about all the Etsy goodness wending its way towards me right now. I 'destashed' recently, only to replace it all with handspun! Anyway, that's some handspun sockyarn I bought from DivineBird, 'Leapyear' colourway. I loved the colours. It's a very fine sockyarn - drops down to laceweight in parts - and a little overspun (easy to fix). But the colours are just great, and the yarn very soft. Because there's only 200 yards of it, it's coiled around what will be the heels, toes and cuffs. Some pure merino I dyed with onionskins and vinegar as a mordant a while ago. I'm not sure that the colour won't fade out a lot, but I don't mind.

Now, I've been reading some Elizabeth Zimmermann recently, and she's inspired me to think about the way that socks are constructed, and how I might best make them. I've broken down the socks into four elements: toe, heel, long tube (foot and leg) and cuff. Now normally one knits either cuff, half of long tube, heel, rest of long tube, toe; or vice versa. I'm going to break the order up a little, for reasons of motivation, neatness of sock, and limitations of yarn respectively. I intend to, over the next couple of weeks, run a set of tutorials on what I've done. None of it is terribly original (more EZ's 'unventing'), but hopefully it might give some of you some ideas.

Tutorial one involves the mystery of getting that single hank you saw above into this.


Two even cakes. I don't have scales to work it out by weight. But this method works nicely if you have a swift and winder. Take your little twisted skein apart so it's a big hank of yarn. Count the number of strands at any point in the hank (I counted by twos, it's quicker). For me it was 105. I want two even cakes, so I'd want 52.5 'rounds' of the hank in each ball. I put the hank on my swift, and tied a scrap of yarn to an arm of the swift where the start of the hank was. Lined that up with my ball winder. Then I just had to count that scrap of yarn passing the ball winder 52 times, and cut the yarn off halfway around the 53rd pass. Easy! I admit I did count in batches of ten, with a little pause between each to stop my poor little brain getting confused.

I also discovered when winding that in general, the yarn went dark - light - dark across its entire length. If I want the light and the dark on my socks to roughly match up, I'll knit one cake from the inside and one from the outside. Also easy.

knitting needle roll tutorial.

there are more pictures here of the Needle Roll to End All Needle Rolls (I call it that because it has space for more stuff than I even own).

this tutorial is now illustrated, with a different, second needle roll i made.

i've also designed this pattern in inches, despite my metric heritage. sorry. you'll cope.

Notes
- I actually cheated, and pieced together lining fabric to pretty fabric where it was covered by another pocket. If you want to do that, remember when cutting each piece to add seam allowance.
- Also, you should iron each piece after you sew it, every time. It'll look crisper, I promise. And this comes from a girl who hates ironing.
- A one inch wide pocket will hold a pair of straight needles (even 10mm thick ones!), a set of dpns up to about 6mm or so, or a few crochet hooks. A two inch wide pocket is good for circular needles up to about 5mm, needle gauges, a small set of scissors. Three inch wide pockets are needed for the largest circulars. You can redesign the number of pockets you have of each width according to what you own, if you want.

Fabric Quantities
5 fat quarters of printed fabric
20" cut from the roll of the thinnest batting you can find
25" cut from the roll of plain cotton to line the pockets
1 yard of ribbon

Cut Pieces
Outer (pretty fabric): 17 6/8" x 20 2/8"
Inner (pretty fabric): 17 6/8" x 20 2/8"
Pocket 1 (cut one of pretty fabric and one of lining): 17 6/8" x 11 3/8"
Pocket 2 (cut one of pretty fabric and one of lining): 17 6/8" x 7 7/8"
Pocket 3 (cut one of pretty fabric and one of lining): 17 6/8" x 6 3/8"
Batting: 17 6/8" x 20 2/8"

Process
1) If you want to applique anything to the outer, do it now.
2) With right sides facing, sew each pocket to its lining along the top of the pocket. Turn and press.


3) Zig-zag down each side of each pocket, sewing the lining and the pretty fabric together.
4) Zig-zag around the outer and the inner.
5) Place the three pockets on top of each other, right sides out and bottom edges aligning.
6) Measure in 7/8" from the left-hand edge of the pockets, and rule a vertical line with chalk. Continue to mark chalk lines at one inch intervals down the right side of all three pockets. There will be 7/8" margin at the right-hand side too.


7) Skipping the first chalk line, mentally assign each line a letter, A to O, from left to right. There will also be one chalk line at the end that remains un-lettered. Ignore these first and last chalklines. They will be sewn down when you sew the inner to the outer.
8) Take Pocket 1 and place it against the inner (pocket lining against right side of inner), with bottom edges aligning. Sew down columns A, C, E, and G from the top edge of the pocket to the bottom. Sew back and forth at each end to secure the stitches.
9) Take Pocket 2 and place it over Pocket 1, lining against right side. Sew down columns I, K, L, M and O, from the top of Pocket 1 to the bottom edge (where everything's aligned, remember) securing at each end. Here's what it looks like once the columns on pocket 1 are sewn, and you're up to pocket 2.


10) Take Pocket 3, place it over Pocket 2. Sew down columns B, D, F, H, J and N from the top of Pocket 1 to the bottom edge, securing stitching at each end.
11) Pin together the inner with pockets and the outer, right sides facing. Pin batting to wrong side of outer.
12) Press top edge of inner and top edge of out/ batting down half an inch, wrong side against wrong side (in this picture, the batting would be up against the wrong side of the green fabric. i ran out of batting, so cheated a little with this roll).


13) Sew around the sides and bottom.
14) Turn and press. There should be no raw edge along the top, it's already been pressed down.
15) Top stitch around all four edges 3/8" from the edge. This look pretty and will sew down the open top flap.
16) Fold the top 2" of the needle roll down towards the pockets to make the inside flap. Topstitch 3/8" from the fold to secure the flap (that's the stitching on the left-hand side in this illustration).


17) Fold the ribbon in half, and stitch it down along the topstitching line of one side of the needle roll. Seal the cut ends with a lighter or clear nail polish.


Ta-da! you have needle roll!


edit: I've had to disable comments because this post was being spammed to death. It's a pity, as I loved seeing other people's knitting needle rolls. Sorry.