I finished my TKSC March socks tonight, while watching Louisville lose to UNC. The foot of these socks is knit on the bias, making them very snug across the arch. Useful if you don’t like floppy socks.
The name is in part an homage to what I spent a good portion of time doing while finishing the second sock, and in part a reflection of my issues with the pattern itself.
Technical specs:
- Yarn: Lime’n'Violet Sasquatch Sock in Bette Davis Colorway
- Needles: Size 1 Bamboo DPNs (8 total, I snapped 3 of them making these socks).
- Pattern: Arch-Shaped Socks by Jen Showalter
- New skills:
- Old Norwegian Cast-On (video near the bottom of the page) – very cool.
- Make 1 (m1) – a technique for increasing the number of stitches. The tricky part is not to create holes, which is achieved by twisting the stitch as you knit it.
- Bias shaping – the combination of increases and decreases creates a form fitting sock.
Issues: The designer recommends picking up an extra couple of stitches along the gussets if you tend to get holes. Great advice, and it works, but it throws off your stitch count. The pattern calls for 5 set up rounds after picking up the gusset stitches, before starting the shaping. That would be 6 decreases total, but if you’ve picked up 18 stitches on each side, you’re going to have problems when the shaping hits the gusset decreases and you still have too many stitches left. The goal of the gusset decreases is to return to the original number of cast-on stitches, 65 in this case.
I would recommend doing 4 extra gusset decreases (decrease 2 on round 1, knit 1 round stockinette, repeat these two rounds once), so that you will have the correct number of stitches on the needles when you begin shaping. Did I figure this out after I finished sock 1? No. I figured it out after having to fudge the bottom of the second sock. But, they’re comfortable, and I like the concept. I think at some point I will design my own socks, and bias shaping is a useful (and easy) technique to know.
I’ve become increasingly interested in the history of knitting. I think, being an academic, I can’t help it, really. So I’ve read a few books which incorporate knitting history (Nancy Bush is great for this), and picked up random things elsewhere. I thought it would be fun to share these as I finish my projects, so I’ve been saving them up.
Bonus – Random Knitting Trivia: John Shakespeare, William’s father, was a brogger:
Wool was one of the most valuable commodities in Tudor England, and the wool trade was controlled by the State. A Brogger was a freelance wool dealer, working without the necessary license.
Broggers bought large amounts of wool from rural farmers and sold it at a large profit in the regional markets. Broggers usually agreed a price in April or May, and collected the wool after shearing in June.
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Source: PBS In Search of Shakespeare via Netflix.
