Makin’ Cookies KAL: Glynis

While working on my Monkey socks, I discovered that the designer, Cookie A, had a whole book about sock design in the works.  Published in April, the first printing sold out quickly.  Her patterns are very popular on Ravelry; the Monkey socks pattern has been knit over 9500 times.

The design section of the book is fantastic.  Cookie prefers to knit her socks from the cuff down, using a flap construction for the heel, so she provides several cuff and heel pattern variations, as well as a handy chart for figuring out the heel turn (my favorite part of a sock).  But more than covering basic sock anatomy, Sock Innovation: Knitting Techniques & Patterns for One-of-a-Kind Socks discusses the basics of good design, including placement, mirroring, and symmetry.

There’s also a section on charts, the difference between charts for flat knitting vs. knitting in the round and how to convert between them, common charting mistakes, and how to read them. A final section on stitch patterns, their effect on the knitted fabric, and how to combine stitch patterns to make one-of-a-kind socks completes the design portion of the book.  Totally worth the cost right there.

The remainder is devoted to original designs from Cookie A. There are 15 in all, of varying degrees of complexity, which will definitely push the boundaries of your knitting knowledge.

With the publication of Sock Innovation, the Makin’ Cookies knit-along (KAL) group was established on Ravelry, where every month we knit one pattern from the book, in order.  There is another KAL based on the book, where group member vote on two patterns for the month, one from the book and one from another source, but I like the structure of knowing what’s coming. I joined the Makin’ Cookies group at the beginning of the month, cast-on my first pair (Glynis) on May 4, and cast-off last night.

Glynis is a charted lacy pattern.  Having little experience with charts, I realized after getting to the gusset decreases on the first sock — essentially halfway done — that I was hopelessly lost trying to transition from the leg chart to the foot chart and had to rip the whole thing out.  Why?  Because I had read the leg chart both upside down and backwards (starting from the top left instead of the bottom right).  Knitting charts are read completely opposite from the way you read normal text.

The pattern is not difficult, just an 8 round repeat with knit rounds every other row, but it does require a little concentration. Cookie, at least in this book, likes to include some interesting stitches (k3tog, kfbf and sssk in this case) in her patterns, which require both excellent fine motor skills and concentration.  I had to tink several times after being distracted.  And while I don’t think I would have chosen to knit this pattern on my own, I’m glad now that I did, as it’s a relatively gentle introduction to reading charts.

Technical specs:

• Yarn: Araucania Ranco Solid (gift from Four Seasons Summer Swap partner)
  • Denim colorway
• Needles: 2.5mm magic loop
• Pattern: Glynis by Cookie A
• New skills:
  • reading charts
  • k3tog, kfbf, sssk

For Nana, here are a couple of videos explaining the more basic k2tog and ssk decreases. The decreases used in this pattern are exactly like these basic decreases, they just incorporate an extra stitch, and are used to make the little diamonds traveling down the sock.