So over the next couple of days I'm taking a few days off due to the fact that quite unexpectedly I found that I could watch the US Open. I was SO excited to have accidentally stumble across the Open on SBS. I always get to watch some of Wimbledon and the Australian Open as I just love watching tennis. I have never been able to watch the US Open and when I accidentally came across the tennis on SBS well that was it for me, everything gets put on hold.

US Open

Sorry the photo is a bit blurred. And as you can see from the photo below the yarn for the second sock is still waiting to be cast on. So all going well I will be casting on for the second sock on Monday or Tuesday. This time around I also hope to video the steps and make it easier to follow along.

Yarn for the second sock

So to all the knitters out there have a good weekend, to all the tennis lovers enjoy your weekend of watching tennis. I will see you in the new week with my sock cast on.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

For today's post I'm talking about finishing the toes. You decrease the same way as the gusset decreasing and the only difference is that you decrease in more spots.

For today's post I thought I would show you want I'm up to in my knitting over the weekend. It's not my favourite task and the only good thing about it is that I will have a finished pair of socks. I sometimes drag my toes when it comes to the finishing touches of sock knitting and with my current wip I struggled a bit with the whole knitting of this pair of socks. Finally though I can see the end of these and I hope my next pair will come off my needles a lot quicker.

Weekend knitting

So this weekend is going to see me grafting toes of my beginner socks and then sewing in the ends. I'm also hoping to get a post up tomorrow about the toes of our beginner socks as they are slightly different to what I normally knit. I'm interested to see how they fit and look and I may end up knitting them this way from now on. It's going to depend on how they look on the foot. Anyway I will explain more tomorrow once I have done the toes and can get a model.

Beginner sock ready for grafting

So that's my sock knitting for the weekend. What are you up to? Need help? Contact me.

Update: Ends are sewn in and toes grafted so I've finally finished and they are almost ready for wearing, just need to wash!

Finished

Just need washing

Sorry for being away from our socks but the weather hasn't been in my favour this past week and I like to be able to take photos so you can see what I'm doing. Also I've been trying to finish off hubs socks as well.

So for today's post I'm going to continue onto the next step in knitting our socks. We have completed the heel flap, which is worked on just two needles. And once that is finished it's time to turn the heel.

Heel flap

When you finish turning the heel you should end up with 18 stitches and the last row requires you to knit across these stitches. This is so we will be ready to setup our gusset which is the next step.

Heel turned

So this is just a short post today to hopefully show you what your sock should look like. I will be posting in the next couple of days showing you how to setup for the gusset.

I've also decided that when I make its mate I will be doing video's and posting them on Youtube. I'm doing this as I think some people find it easier to look at a video rather than reading and photos. I know I find it easier!

Hope this is helpful. Need help? Contact me.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

So for today's post I thought I would post about my weekend knitting. I actually have two projects in my bag and that's unusual for me. I always just concentrate on one pair of socks at a time and then when I just have to sew in ends I will cast on for another pair.

Weekend Knitting

I don't have that far to go with the orange socks which were my current work in progress and I started the purple ones to guide beginner sock knitters with. The purple ones are going to be a bit slow as I'm posting each step for beginner knitters to follow along. With the orange socks I'm almost at the gusset and once I'm there I always think I'm on the homeward stretch.

Picking up stitches

I'm going to concentrate on these orange ones and hopefully get them done, if not by the end of the weekend then hopefully by Monday.

I had a nice comment by a lady when I posted about these socks before saying when she knits socks with bright colours she likes to knit stripes to break up the colour. This gave me some food for thought and if I hadn't been so far ahead with these I would have considered it. I had some navy and I like orange and navy together. My thinking was I would knit the legs in orange and then mix up the feet with missed matched stripes of varying width of stripes and different coloured heels. I got quite excited about it but then realised that I had already knitted it's mate:-(

This is the great thing about learning how to knit socks as you can make them any colours you like and if you really start to get into it, you will end up with lots of leftover yarn. And then if you are making them for family you can make stripy socks using up the leftovers.

So anyway lets see how I go this weekend, here's hoping I get them finished. Have a great weekend.

Enjoy your weekend knitting
Sharyn

So for today's post we are going to be moving along to the heel flap but first off you need to knit the leg to the desired length. I've knitted mine longer this time around, I haven't been knitting for a little while and I was enjoying it so much I got carried away. Of course I could pull it back a bit but I don't like doing that sort of thing.

I knitted my leg length to 7 1/2"

So now I'm about to knit my heel flap, so I just want to clarify that your first and second needle will be your heel stitches and your third and fourth needle will become your instep stitches. Now when you go to knit your heel flap it's best to move the stitches from your second needle onto your first needle so that you are knitting your heel flap on one needle.

Transferring my stitches to needle one

Heel stitches on 1 needle ready for knitting

If you are following this pattern and using five needles you will already have your other two needles set up. And then what I do is follow rows 3 and 4 for the whole heel flap and I do just 32 rows all up, that's 16 rows for each row.

Repeat rows 3 and 4, 16 times each

Now of course you don't have to follow what I said, this is just the way I like to do it.  You can follow the pattern instead. Next time we will be turning the heel and looking at the gusset and how to set it up. I hope you have a great weekend.
Hope this is helpful. Need help? Contact me.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

So today I thought I would look at knitting our first pair of socks. To find a sock pattern you could Google to find a free pattern for beginners or you could also check out Ravelry. Ravelry is a free community of knitters and people who crochet. It's a great resource for patterns, free and paid for. The website also has groups that have forums you can join, where you will find people that enjoy the same things you do. I can easily spend hours browsing the pattern section looking for new patterns.

So this is the pattern I've picked to knit as the first pair for a beginner sock knitter. Now you don't need to join Ravelry and download this pattern if you choose to check out Google that's fine. This pattern is just a plain pattern where you rib for the cuff and then the rest of the knitting is plain knit, a very simple pattern. What I thought I would do is go through the steps and take photo's along the way, this way you can follow along and if you are using a different pattern it should not be too hard to work out what to do. I'm also more than happy to answer any questions or do a video if it helps to show you how to go about it.

This pattern would be a woman's medium sock pattern and you knit it using 5 dpn and the first thing we need to do is our gauge. Make sure to first wash and dry your swatch before measuring and counting. Then measure 2" and divide between 2 and that will give you your 1" gauge.

Now for the cast on, it says to use the long tail cast on but if you're new and not sure how to go about it just cast on using a basic cable cast on. It`s then just a simple task to slip your 16 stitches onto their needles. It`s then just a matter of slipping the first stitch you cast on to the last needle and then taking the last stitch and slipping it onto the first needle. The most IMPORTANT step here is to make sure you do not twist the stitches. The easiest way to check this is to make sure all the bumps are on the inside of your work.


Hope this is helpful. Need help? Contact me.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

Slip knot on one needle with a long tail

Slip stitch on one needle with ball yarn over index finger and tail over thumb

So my left hand position is with my index finger on top and the yarn from the ball over it and my thumb below and the yarn from the tail over it. You can see this in the above photo. So I then move my thumb on top and my yarn around the thumb forms a loop you then bring the needle behind the yarn from the ball and through the loop on the thumb to form a stitch.

See how I bring the needle behind the yarn from the ball through the loop to form a new stitch

I basically just move my thumb from the down position to the top position to keep on creating new stitches.

A new stitch formed

So you just keep going until you have enough stitches on the needle for your sock. I cast on all the stitches and then just move them around. That's how I do my long tail cast on.

Keep casting on until you have the correct number of stitches for your socks

Hope this is helpful. Need help? Contact me.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

So it's been a bit chilly here in Adelaide, so that makes for good knitting weather. So today I thought I would go off topic and share a bit about one of my hobbies. I'm currently doing some charity knitting for the homeless. I thought this would be a good way for me to use up some of my stash. I have a lot of yarn:-)

My charity knitting occurred by accident actually, someone in one of the Facebook groups I belong to posted about knitting for the homeless. They were saying that they were doing it in other states so why shouldn't we do it. That started the ball rolling and it has snow balled from there.

They were asking for yarn, knitted/crocheted blankets, jumpers, gloves and scarves. Any yarn they get will be knitted/crocheted into squares for blankets.

Stash yarn for a crocheted blanket

 So I have knitted several beanies, just plain ones and they are all made from wool yarn. I prefer using natural fibres when knitting, this of course is just my preference. 

Child's jumper front

Also a few years ago I purchased a bit of wool yarn to start a business on Etsy to sell handmade knitted children's garments. I soon realised that wasn't viable as I couldn't purchase yarn wholesale. So before I actually realised this I had started knitting children's garments. So I plan on donating them to the homeless but first I need to do the finishing touches, like sew them up and finish of the neck edgings. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.



Happy Knitting
Sharyn

Today in Adelaide it's been a bit chilly, so this makes for a great sock knitting day.  On a cold day, you will usually find me knitting unless I have to go out to work. It just seems right to knit more at this time of year, I do still knit in the summer time but I find I don't do as much.

So for today's post, I thought I would tackle the casting on for our socks. Now there are many ways to cast on but for now, I will show two. We have a basic one and then we have my favourite, which I use all the time and I basically use this cast on for all my knitting.

So I will start with the first one which is a cable cast on. This is a basic cast on and it's a good cast on for a beginner. To use this type of cast on simply make a slip knot and slip this onto your dpn.


Then you slip your needle in the slip knot and wrap your yarn around so that it goes between the needles to make our second stitch.


Then just knit that stitch to keep casting on.




So to continue on you stick your needle between the first stitch and the second and then wrap the yarn around as though to knit, you then knit the stitch onto your needle.So once you have set the first two stitches you continue on casting on until you have the correct amount of stitches.

So when I cast on for socks using dpn I cast on one needle and then transfer my stitches around until I have the correct amount of stitches on all needles. When I can I divide my stitches equally between each needle. Otherwise, I put the most stitches between two needles and I make this my instep and the other stitches become my heel stitches.

So I hope this post helps with how to cast on for socks when using a basic cable cast on. In my next post, I will show you how to cast on using The Long Tail Cast On which is my preferred method.


Hope this is helpful. Need help? Contact me.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

Today I thought I would look at my current work in progress. It's a pair of socks I start making for my daughter but she wasn't happy with them so now they are going to my hubby. I was a bit surprise really that he said he would have them, I thought the colour would be too bright for him!

Row 2: Knit. How easy is that!

So I wanted to ask a quick question. Beginner sock knitters may not suffer from this but some seasoned sock knitters might. Do you suffer with second sock syndrome? I myself don't usually suffer with this problem but I have found with this pair I'am a bit. When this happens to you, what do you do? I myself try and just push through it and just knit, knit, knit. But with this pair it's not happening.


So if your a beginner sock knitter be warned this could happen to you, so be prepared. Also I always keep a note book with all my sock details in it. This way I can keep track and I know exactly where I'm at. I mark down every row I knit, so this way all my socks are always the same as each other. I sometimes found when I first started knitting socks that I couldn't quiet get the pairs to match. But now because I do it this way they are always a perfect pair. I have been doing it this way for a very LONG time. I have gone through a few note books!

 So here's hoping I can get back into finishing this pair of socks for my hubby and he will soon end up with a new pair of socks. Hopefully in the not too distant future I will be posting with an update on a finished pair of socks! Have a good weekend.

Happy Knitting
Sharyn

So today I want to talk about gauge, it's not something I enjoy but it has to be done. First off I will let you know what you have to do then I will tell you how to knit your swatch for sock knitting.

First off with any knitted swatch once it has been knitted you must wash it then once dry take several measurements over 4 inches. I usually take 2 measurements in 2 different spots and hopefully they are the same. If you get 2 different then take another measurement and hopefully after that you will have 2 the same. Once that's done just divide the number by 4. Also with knitting a swatch I always use a basic cast on and I always just do a stockinette stitch swatch for my socks.

So now let's look at knitting a circular swatch for sock knitting. I like to knit my circular swatches flat, so to do this I use my dpn and cast on enough stitches to cover my 4 inches. I then knit across these stitches, now with normal knitting I would turn this work around and purl back. So what we do is carry the yarn loosely to the start again and knit back again, so that way we are knitting every row. Now make sure to carry that yarn loosely as once we have finished our swatch and cast off, these strands will be cut. So you also want to knit the swatch large enough so that you get a good measurement.

Knit your swatch

Carry yarn loosely at back

Cast off

Cut threads

Measure 4", pin and count the stitches

Happy Knitting
Sharyn