Achievement unlocked!

[melannen]

I have Knitted A Sock! It's the "basic sock" pattern out of Folk Socks. It only took five and a half years!

I am actually feeling much prouder of the accomplishment than I expected. And, unexpectedly, it even fits! My left foot is warm. Unfortunately I made it out of some strange yarn I bought at a thrift store that's no longer in business, and there's not quite enough in the same color to do a second sock (there's some almost-the-same-color of the same yarn, though.)

And I still haven't figured out the SSK decrease, but, eh, it feels fine, it just doesn't quite look right. :P

And now I don't have any unfinished knitting or crochet projects kicking around and I'm at loose ends.

Poll #21608

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 72

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What should I do?

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Um, knit the other sock out of the pair (even if you will have to use a slightly different yarn color)
53 (73.6%)

Start one of the 19th century patterns out of the book, to wear for cosplay, which was the original plan once you had leveled up Knitter of Socks five years ago.
14 (19.4%)

Start one of the non-sock knitting projects you've been saying you will once sock was done, like that Icelandic sweater you bought all that lopi for.
14 (19.4%)

Good now finish up all your unfinished sewing/embroidery/quilting/naalbinding/spinning/weaving/mending/electronics repair/painting projects before you start something new.
12 (16.7%)

Ticky.
23 (31.9%)

Comments

[chickiedeare]

Fraternal socks are groovy and in! Or so I am telling myself, because I just finished my second pair of socks ever and the stripes don't line up.

SSKs are overrated imo.

[melannen]

I just can't figure out the difference between SSK and K2TOG. (And that was the main part of the 5-year delay). I think this is because I do my normal knit stitches weird, such that my K2TOG *is* an SSK? But also I'm not sure if I care.

[chickiedeare]

Ooo, do you knit everything through the back loop? That's how I learned, and it made things really funky for a while every time I tried to level up to a new kind of project. I've been relearning things in trial-and-error stages over the past year or so, but I also work in a yarn store and am surrounded by experts.

However, I still can't tell SSK from K2TBL. So... whatever works.

[ellen_fremedon]

I did this for years! It makes for a very warm, close fabric but also uses about 20% more yarn.

[melannen]

...this would explain why I never seem to have enough yarn for the pattern.

I really do like the result better than what I got when trying to do it American-style, though. I though it was because I was doing it wrong, but maybe it's just worse. :P

[chickiedeare]

Aha! I didn't know that! My issue was that my projects in the round biased like crazy - for hats it was no big deal, but my first half a sock I worked on for a whole vacation, hours of plane and bus time, got through the heel... and it was too twisted and the heel and toe wouldn't've lined up, so I had to frog it all.

[ellen_fremedon]

I had the same issue, but I think I must have been using a different heel turn technique--I made a pair of socks that way that had a wonderful spiral twist all up the ankle, but the heels still worked out.

[melannen]

I think so? I took a "basic" class from a German woman (who did apologize to us for probably confusing us for life!) who was teaching some version of continental, and then I spent many years (pre-youtube) messing around without patterns or from very old books, and then when I decided to try to level up and knit things that were not just tubes or rectangles with very simple increase/decreases, I was using Icelandic patterns. So I think I default to something similar, but not identical to, combined knitting. I tried to teach myself American style a few years back, but I'm not sure I was doing that right either, so I stopped before I learned a different set of bad habits. And I found it a lot harder on the wrists and fingers, too, so I wasn't super invested in retraining.

[stellar_dust]

The main difference is in how they look when it's done - they kind of lean in opposite directions - K2TOG leans to the right, SSK leans to the left. The two slip stitches change the twist to the yarn (i.e. whether the left or right end of the stitch is towards the front of the needle before you knit it), and then the knit stitch is through the back of those two reversed stitches, so the effect is that the other stitch is the more prominent one on the right side when you're done. (At least, I think that's what it is. I just did a test swatch to see what happens and that's my theory.)

To me usually K2TOG looks like one column of stitches got eaten by the other one, while SSK looks like two columns smoothly merged into one, but I think that's mostly because I'm usually better at SSK because slipping makes the stitches a bit looser so it's easier to get in there and knit them together. So the two connected stitches lie a little more flat, and any bunching that happens is mostly on the wrong/purl side of the knitting.

But it doesn't really matter as long as you have a decrease.

[ellen_fremedon]

Mine always end up leaning the same direction! At best, my SSK is straight up-and-down, but I can't get an actual left slant to save my life.

(I have the same problem with increases, and a sweater which has been stalled out for years because of it--I can't find a formula for bust darts that doesn't rely on being able to make right- and left-slanted increases.)

[melannen]

I honestly don't understand the 'slant' part because that is not even slightly how I would describe what my k2tog looks like.

[stellar_dust]

Does it look like one of your stitches is reaching over and grabbing the next column? The slant is which way it's reaching.

[melannen]

Yep, that's exactly what all the books say too! But I don't have a twist in the yarn at that point so it doesn't do anything. I was mostly worried on the sock that it would be the wrong kind of lumpy, but I think, based on the way my sock pattern was using them, that ssk/k2tog are inverses, such that if you do one at one end of a row, and one at the other, your result will be symmetrical? So I have a very slightly non-symmetrical toe and it's fine. Unfortunately some of the fancier historical patterns in my Folk Socks book actually use the increases/descreases as part of the pattern, so if I want to keep going in the book, I should probably figure it out. If I decide to do it right I may just end up doing a sampler with all the increases/decreases in the book and messing around until I manage to get something that looks right for each one, which is pretty much the only way I learn motor skills anyway.

[stellar_dust]

I think a sampler is probably a good idea!

But I suspect that even when it's part of the pattern, the fact of the decrease is more important that what it looks like.

[melannen]

For a lot of stockings with knitted "clocks", the heel shaping is the pattern, and the way you do different increases/decreases is part of what makes it fancy clocks rather than a shaped heel. But I think they're using fancier decreases than ssk for those, too. And some of the Scandinavian colorwork socks work hidden decreases into the color pattern (like in a sweater yoke, but more confusing) although I think those mostly just use k2tog.

[stellar_dust]

I just googled clock socks and have ended up in a world where the Boring Dad Stuff Forum from Homestuck is a real thing.

IDK what just happened but i think it's time for bed.

[melannen]

yes good.

I think you get better results if you google clocks stockings, but most of the results seem to be for fancy embroidered ones rather than knitted-in (it's the same idea though, the embroidery disguises the heel shaping.)

[felinejumper]

Congrats!!! A warm left foot, what more could one want.

[melannen]

A warm left foot is definitely not something to turn one's nose up at!

[sheliak]

Knit a sock in a different but complementary color!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Seconding this as a valid option.

(Nice Jupiter, btw.)

[melannen]

Sadly not an option! This is a weird yarn that I could never match the texture on and don't have a label for (I'm not even completely sure of the fiber - it might be an odd wool blend, it might be one of the old scratchy synthetics from before they had polyester quite figured out.) The yarn I don't have enough for a second sock is red-red-blue 3ply and the only other big enough ball is red-brown-blue. So my option are either red-brown-blue or patching together multiple colors (I think there are smaller balls of brown-brown-green and brown-green-red, but not enough for a whole second sock.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Under most circumstances, a sock requires one or more mates. Sockmates need to be of the same thickness and fiber content; avantgarde socks may vary their length and or pattern.

Man, now I'm contemplating argyle socks with lacework legs. I've only knitted one pair!

If it wasn't gardening season, I'd cast on a mobius scarf.

[melannen]

One of the first projects I ever did was a mobius scart! I did it the topologically valid way with circular crochet on a twisted loop, even, instead of putting the twist in later like most patterns I see these days.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I've got a small one I knitted with circular needles-didn't really have a long one then and probably didn't cast on as many stitches as I could.

[kitewithfish]

I think socks are one of those things improved by repetition - you learn so much with the first pair that doing the second pair, I have found, is immensely satisfying.

I also recommend, if you think it might be for you, doing your socks two-at-a-time on magic loop - it completely removes the horrible realization that you've finished Sock #1 and now have the whole-entire-nother sock to do. D:

[stellar_dust]

I've been knitting socks on magic loop and keep getting these -- horrible little holes at the end of the row. I'm almost to the heels and it's happened like 5 times. I must be turning the work wrong or something but i can't figure it out, because i only notice a few rows after it happens!

[ironymaiden]

Laddering where the cord loop pops out is a tension thing. The cord pushes your knitting apart a bit and it's easy to end up with a bit of extra yarn between the stitches. You need to pull the two stitches after the loop extra-tight. You can also break up the column by moving where you pop out the loop every so many rounds to vary where the unintended loose stitches go. (Also, laddering will often shake out in blocking/the wash.)

[stellar_dust]

I'll give that a try, thanks!

[melannen]

This is one of the reasons I like DPNs better. (You avoid this on DPNs by just being inconsistent about how many stitches you keep on each needle, which is what I do anyway.)

[stellar_dust]

If I decide to give magic loop another go after this pair, I will definitely attempt it on DPNs!

[melannen]

..having actually googled it, magic loop appears to be a way to pretend you are using DPNs with a circular needle, except with only three needles, which is too few DPNs. (I definitely had laddering issues the time I tried to do a whole cuff with only three DPNs because I had lost the other three.) So unless you're super-afraid of your needles falling out (which I've only had as a problem on metal dpns, never plastic, wood, or bamboo) it should not be too different, except that the cast-on always seems harder.

[melannen]

It does seem like an excellent way to keep your sizing the same, if nothing else. I'm not sure I'm up to that yet, though, and for the historical socks I want to use historical methods. (Also most of the magic loop I've seen involves circular needles, and I much prefer DPNs for circular knitting, although I am told it is possible on dpns.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Alternatively, if you have enough of the correctly sized dps/circulars, concurrent socks with yarn chicken! But variegated yarn can only chicken if it's the same coming and going.

(I've not yarn chickened, any more than I've raced for pinks. I need to finish a UFO that was supposed to be a scarf but is acrylic. My winters are too woolen for knitted acrylic.)

[melannen]

My only definition of yarn chicken is when you're afraid you're going to run out of yarn, and I do that on pretty much every project already. :P

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

You can work from both ends. and you may run out on both items.

[elanya]

I love knitting socks - they're great for mu bus commute too. My goal is to have enough pairs of hand knit socks to last me through a laundry cycle. I'm *almost* there, but I have a couple of pairs that need darning too.

[wyld_dandelyon]

If you have enough, add a few rows of the alternate color at the top of this sock, then knit the alternate color sock and add a few rows of this color at the top. Then they will match.

[dejadrew]

Knit the other sock out of the pair, but use a COMPLETELY different (but complimenting) sock colour. Yarn that's a SLIGHTLY different colour looks like a mistake. Yarn that's a completely different colour looks like an artistic choice!