Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 10:23:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Brenda and Larry Clough To: knitlist@kniton.com Subject: Knit: Blue Sock Okay, a pattern: not for a little blue sock, but for a sock-shaped piece of knitting! Ideally suited for those who don't like knitting on teeny dpns, easily passes the galloping horse test, and takes about 20 minutes total to make even for a lackadaisical knitter like me. Find some blue yarn and some needles. I used 4 or 5 yards of leftover Woolese and # 5 needles. You will want to get a reasonably solid and cloth-like fabric, none of this shawl lace appearance. Cast on enough sts to get a piece of knitting 1 inch wide. I cast on 8 sts. Rib back and forth for 5 or 6 rows. Then switch to stockinette, and knit for another 5 or 6 rows. The knitting will be about 1 1/2 inches long, more or less -- this is easily adjustable to suit your fancy. Turning the heel: Decide whether the sock toe is going to point to the right or the left. The heel will be on the opposite side. In garter st, starting at the heel edge, knit about 3/4 of the way across. On my 8 sts sock, this was 6 sts. Turn, wrapping the working yarn around st #7 so as not to leave a hole. Knit back. On the next row, knit only 5 sts, turn and wrap. Knit back. It's not necessary to short-row a whole lot, since the sock doesn't actually have to turn a full right angle. At some point, maybe when you've knit 3 sts and turned and wrapped, you can start making the rows longer again. Knit 4 sts, wrap and turn; knit 5 sts, wrap and turn, etc., until the entire needle full of sts is being worked again. Do three or four rows more of stockinette, and then switch to garter st for the toe. Decrease once on each edge every other row, until there are only 2 or 3 sts left. Then run the working yarn through the remaining sts and pull up tight. Be sure to press the work nice and flat, to help it look like a sock. Another way to increase the sockishness would be to work the heel and toe in some contrasting color. Regards, Brenda -- Brenda Clough, author of HOW LIKE A GOD, a science fiction novel from Tor Books --- This pattern downloaded from Wool Works: the online knitting compendium http://www.woolworks.org/