Thursday I read the Turtlegirl’s sock meme<\/a> post and then went about my day. Saturday I read her Friday post, commented, and Cristi promptly sent a reply part of which said, “Did you see Thursday’s post? You might want to read it.” I read it again, and this time I realized I was tagged for the sock meme. Apparently, I am not a very careful reader. But it is a good sock knitting meme, so here we have my version.<\/p>\n

1. What\u2019s your favorite sock yarn? (please note that the word \u2018yarn\u2019 is singular. Just pick one. I know it\u2019s hard.)<\/strong>
\nWith the caveat that I have not yet knit with two favorite sock yarns of the blogworld, namely Koigu and STR, Cherry Tree Hill Supersock is my top pick. It’s a pleasure to knit, has wonderful colors that in my hands do not pool in an ugly fashion, wears and washes very well, and produces a supremely comfortable fabric. Every time I get out a pair of my CTH socks to wear, I swear I can hear my toes do a little cheer. My sock yarn stash may have some CTH SS in several colors.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

2. What\u2019s your favorite type and brand of sock needle?<\/strong>
\nI use dpns. I started with clover bamboo, moved onto Crystal Palace Bamboo, which I like much better as they are much slicker. But then I tried Susan Bates aluminum dpns. Super slick! And I easily knit a little tighter with them, which is a plus for me. I do still use the CP bamboo, but the Susan Bates are my favorites. I’m a cheap date.
\nI have two sock patterns that are written for socks knit on two circular needles, and this has put me in a quandary. The only 16-inch circs I’ve tried (clover bamboo or Inox) have needle portions far too short for comfort. Any suggestions?<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nCTH SS Potluck in Watercolors. I may have squealed when I saw this.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Do you knit your socks toe up, cuff down, or sideways?<\/strong>
\nCuff down. Even with a 350 yd skein, I can get socks with the length leg I want and still have over 20 g left over. Why on earth would I knit toe up? Really, I’m asking, why?<\/p>\n

4. Do you knit both socks at once or just one at a time?<\/strong>
\nOne at a time. It’s the dpn thing, and I am willing to sweater sleeves singly, so I don’t anticipate a change.<\/p>\n

5. What\u2019s your favorite toe and why?<\/strong>
\nI have pointy feet, so round toes or star toes work best for me. When I knit for others, I usually do a grafted, standard toe as it tends to look more “normal” to the uninitiated.
\n<\/a>
\nCTH SS in Birches. Methinks this might make some mighty nice Marina Piccola<\/a> socks.<\/em><\/p>\n

6. Favorite heel?
\nHeel flap and a standard round heel turn, although I do sometimes do a square heel. I really like to edge my heel flap with 2-3 garter stitches compared to the slipped stitch chain edge. The garter stitches make picking up stitches for the gussets so<\/em> easy, and it looks flawless even when done in the wee hours during a bout of insomnia. Gotta like that.<\/p>\n

7. Do you prefer plain or patterned socks?<\/strong>
\nI’ve knit a lot of socks. I’ve knit one pair of stockinette socks. I’ve knit one pair of lace socks (a gift). Cables and knit-purl patterns rule my world. I’m going to dive into the whole Austrian twisted stitch thing too.<\/p>\n

8. Who do you knit the most socks for?<\/strong>
\nMostly I knit for myself, but I tend to knit a pair a year for various relatives and my friend Nancy. I knit Nancy the Spaced Check Socks<\/a> in Claudia’s Handpainted A Walk in the Woods this year. Last year I knit her some ribbed socks<\/a> in CTH SS Peacock. Now she wants to learn how to knit socks! The power of the hand knit sock is strong.<\/p>\n

9. Do you darn your socks? If not, what do you do with them?<\/strong>
\nI haven’t had to yet. I tend to wear socks only when wearing shoes, so I am not very hard on them. If I loved the yarn and the pattern, I might just darn them. We’ll have to wait and see.<\/p>\n

10. Do you only wear handknit socks?<\/strong>
\nThat is my goal, with the exception of white athletic socks with sneakers. I am almost there. Occasionally, I don’t have an appropriately colored pair that is clean and then I wear purchased socks. My feet aren’t real thrilled with this.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nCTH SS solids in Amethyst. What’s not to love?<\/em><\/p>\n

Bonus question: What pattern, if any, is your basic \u201cI-just-need-a-pair-of-socks\u201d sock pattern based on? Do you keep it written down or memorized?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I no longer need a basic sock pattern if it’s a sock for me. The round heel I have memorized is Charlene Schurch’s. I often use Nancy Bush’s heel and toe directions from Vintage Socks.<\/em> If I make things up as I go along, I now have learned to write down what I do in the first sock for the second. I can and have gone back to the first sock to figure it all out all over again, but writing is a wonderful skill and tool.<\/p>\n

As for tagging two others, I think it only fair to tag the two people whose socks always<\/em> make me say, “Wow! I have to knit that!” So Kristy<\/a> and Christie<\/a>, if you like, you are tagged. Has anyone noticed that there are a lot of women named K\/C(h)risty\/i(e) who knit socks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday I read the Turtlegirl’s sock meme post and then went about my day. Saturday I read her Friday post, commented, and Cristi promptly sent a reply part of which said, “Did you see Thursday’s post? You might want to read it.” I read it …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,35],"tags":[44,51,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pEGF-25","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molecularknitting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}