Don't forget to check out the annual Mother's Day Sale over at the Stitch Whisper Designs Etsy Shop!
Last year, I bought one skein of sock yarn from Arcane Fibre Works in the colorway Green of Wheat. I like the color, but its name was what really caught my attention. Since Passover aligns with the ripening of grain, I thought it would be fun to make grain-themed socks in a grain-themed color to wear during the holiday.
Next, I had to find an appropriate pattern. After an exhaustive search on Ravelry, I landed on the Life Cycle sock pattern, by Star Athena. There were a couple other patterns I considered, but Life Cycle was the most interesting. It is also a free pattern, which is a perk, and an opportunity for me to learn lots of new skills.
The pattern is worked toe-up, which I have done in the past, but I started those with a knitted cast-on and then worked into the underside of the cast-on. It works, but it's awkward and creates a little ridge on the inside of the toe. This pattern uses Judy's Magic Cast-On, which makes stitches on both sides at the same time and is seamless. If you know how to do a long-tail cast-on, it's a variation on that.
The pattern for the foot uses wrapped stitches, but I don't like how it looks, so I skipped it. Instead, I made my socks using stockinette in the foot. This pattern is also written with the assumption you will work it on two circular needles, not a set of dpns. I made mine on dpns, so I had to remember that Needle 1 referred to Needles A and B and Needle 2 meant Needles C and D. I also learned the hard way with the first sock that this pattern works best on a set of FOUR dpns, not FIVE. In the charts for the instep and leg, the center stitch of the front is often part of a cable or a yarn over. It works much better if all the instep (front of leg) stitches are on one needle.
When I have worked toe up in the past, I used the afterthought heel. This pattern uses a short-row heel that is basically the classic heel-flap pattern worked in reverse. That means that the short-rows end with increases instead of decreases and joining the heel to the rest of the sock sort of reminded me of entrelac.
The design that led to me choosing this pattern in the first place is directed through two charts. The second chart is by far the largest chart I've ever done, and I had to be very careful to keep my place. It included two techniques I had never tried before. The first is the knitted bobble, which isn't hard, but was fun to learn. The other was doing 2-stitch cables, which isn't really its own technique, but definitely has its own look and is more fiddly than traditional cables. Some of the cables included working off both ends of the cable needle, which I have done before, but is definitely different if you haven't done it before.
Finally, the pattern recommends using Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off to finish the socks, and I was pleasantly surprised with how well that turned out. The instructions for that bind off are to do k 1, reverse YO, k 1, and then pass the first stitch and YO over the second stitch. However, since this sock pattern has you binding off ribbing, the reverse YO doesn't work very well when the next stitch is a purl, so you reverse YO if the next stitch is a knit and YO if the next stitch is a purl.
As for the yarn, when I first bought it, I was concerned with how it would wear. I haven't put them through anything particularly strenuous, but I have worn them around the house a fair amount, and I have put them through the wash (and dried flat). The socks are holding up just fine so far. They did fluff a bit in the wash, but they held their shape well.
The socks fit me perfectly, there's no hard edge to the bind off, and all the directions are actually really easy to follow and well-written. They just require you to pay attention to where you are.
This post has been linked to HIH, Busy Monday, Inspire Me Monday, Senior Salon, WITS, Wonderful Wednesday, The Stitchin' Mommy, Thursday Favorite Things, and Create-It!
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