Folk Socks pattern problems

Hi, Nyssa! Gosh, I don't have the pattern, otherwise I'd have a look-see and perhaps even a test-knit. I HAVE found many the pattern with errors... does the publisher have a website that just MIGHT have an errata sheet on this particular folk sock? Someone WILL help, am sure. And... I agree, it's HOT! Hugs, Noreen

Nyssa, Interweave Press has a corrections page, but I don't see anything on it related to the Folk Socks book. Maybe you could contact them directly.

Eimear

You're not moving the clock over, you're merely continuing the clock down the foot about halfway - just enough that if you wear open-sided shoes the clock will show. Just work the pattern down the foot to about an inch before you'd start the toe, then work plain to the toe, make the toe, done.

I had problems with these socks too. I made them in red first and had no end of woes. Switched to purple and was able to get them both made. I made one before a vacation and left it home, one while on vacation working from notes made during the first sock's knitting. Damned things were identical in all ways except gauge and I wasn't about to knit a fourth sock.

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On 05 Jul 2005 19:06:24 EDT, Nyssa spewed forth :

Oh, I see the problem. Have you knitted socks before? If not then I can see how the instructions+chart might seem confusing.

The not-so-short version is: After making the flap and turning the heel one is left with an oddly-shaped item that doesn't much resemble a sock. One must, therefore PICK UP stitches on both sides of the flap then decrease away the extras. The decreasing forms the gussets, which are merely the extra wedge-shaped bits that let your heel fit into the sock.

So, as one decreases at the end of needle 1 and the beginning of needle 4 (assumes you're knitting the sock on 5 needles) the clocks do indeed appear to be moving over, but what you're really doing is decreasing away the extra stitches you picked up on the flaps while simultaneously making the gussets and returning to the original stitch count you started with.

Better?

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That's what I'm going to do after I unknit the rounds back to where the clock sections split off from the heel.

Unfortunately the instruction chart *clearly* shows the clock moving over one stitch each round and that's what I followed the first try.

The photo of the finished socks could never have been made the way the chart is saying either. So much for paying more attention to the instructions instead of the photo.

I feel your pain. I'm sooo glad I decided to knit both socks at once. No one-sock syndrome and both will end up exactly the same size. Of course, that also means I have *two* socks to unknit and correct at the moment, as well.

Nyssa, who is *so* tired of these socks and wants to move on to a happier project

I've knitted socks before, but usually from written instructions rather than a chart.

No problemo doing any of this. Didn't have a speck of trouble until the chart showed the three stitches of the clock stair- stepping over each other. The clock stitches don't move! If the plain gusset stitches are the ones that move, why step the others?

I'm using the Magic Loop method on long circular needles with markers where the stitches would fall on double points. Much less fiddling!

It would have been clearer if the chart did *not* show the three clock pattern stitches moving one over each row/round. They

*don't* "move"...that is the purl doesn't fall over the knit stitch of the previous round and so forth. It just doesn't make any sense the way it's shown.

Gimme written instructions over a chart any day. They're less open to mis-interpretation!

Nyssa, who tends to be rather literal in her interpretations At River's End

On 06 Jul 2005 10:43:45 EDT, Nyssa spewed forth :

The written instructions are pretty clear - p73 *Shape Gussets* tells you to decrease the gussets while working the foot in pattern. I don't recall using hte chart at all once I had the pattern set up, but it has been several years.

A lot of following any pattern - written line-for-line or charted - is common sense. If I'm given a pattern two ways - charted and written - and one looks more likely than the other to produce the desired results, that's the one I try first (Not that I'm accusing you of a lack common sense, mind!)

Not all charts are created equal, but Nancy puts a lot of time and effort into her stuff - witness the relatively few errata for her books :) Her website it

- no errata thereand NAYY but you can get in touch with Nancy if you're having troublewith one of her patterns but sometimes you have to be patient becauseshe's on the road quite a bit.Now, the Tongue River Socks patterns are guaranteed to drive you nuts*g*

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Ack... this makes me glad I never tried knitting socks. Mind you, because of my odd way of holding the needles (the head of the right one in the crease of my right leg as a prop) I can't knit with four needles anyway (of course I have found a couple of patterns for socks and mittens on two needles that I will try SOMEDAY)... or circulars either for that matter.

Oh, and looking at those charts on any pattern gives me a huge headache... give me a good old printed out word-for-word pattern any day! ;o) It's like looking at a music sheet... those little notes look like squashed tadpoles to me.

I can't find the pattern you mean, what page is it on???? Also there is a

***Key*** to travelling stitch designs on page 100

Cheers.....Cher

Right got the pattern, now which graph are you talking about, it doesn't show it moving in mine, wonder if therre is a first and later edition....think I've got the right pattern on page 71 and page 72 shows two graphs.....right??

The top graph shows the instep as if it's been cut away from the rest of the sock, but this is just to show how the front or top of the sock ends up, the piece is actually done together....if you need me to put these graphs on a web site I will..

Cheers........Cher

It's on pages 72 and 73. The chart in question is on 72 for the instep.

The instructions say "work across the instep sts in pattern following the instep graph."

The problem comes in because the graph clearly shows these three pattern stitches moving over one stitch each round, when in fact they stay are supposed to stay right over each other.

I've unknitted back to the point the instep and gusset split, and am now reknitting and ignoring said chart.

I also made one change to the start of the gusset since it was bugging me before. I picked up one extra stitch (making

18 instead of 17 called for) at the top of the heel stitches and then knitted two stitches together to firm up the corner where it splits. There was a small gap there before that I couldn't pull in enough to suit me, but this way the gap is no longer an issue.

I'm soooo tired of these socks!

Nyssa, who is happy that rain *finally* came and automatically watered her garden last night At River's End

Definitely, Nyssa!

Katherine

Thanks, Cher, but I think it's just a case of the designer meant the chart to convey one thing, but it really can be read a different way.

If it were a road map, I'd be taking a left turn right there. lol

Didn't get any time to work on 'em yesterday. I had to get up before dawn to drive to an early morning ham radio exam session I'd been asked to help administer. By the time I got back home it was too hot to play with wool, and I was too tired to see straight anyway.

Maybe I can get back to it later today.

At least 4 out of the 5 folks taking ham exams went away happy yesterday. :)

Nyssa, who is glad that once the clocks are "reset" the socks aren't too far from being finished

The problem with the chart comes in because of two things:

1) They leave a large blank area between the instep and heel clock stitches, so there is no other reference point for where those three stitches go except by self-reference, what we programmer geek types call "relative addressing." 2) Since the decreases are *not* shown on the chart (that big blank space), the chart does show that the alternating rows/rounds of "purl, knit, purl" and "purl, purl, purl" jog over each round, again self-referencing it looks as though you should be moving the pattern stitches over.

With no other stitches around it, that's all a nice, literal minded, instruction-following computer scientist can interpret from it. The chart "says" to move it, so I moved it.

Down with charts!!!

Thanks for everyone's help figgering out this mess.

These had better be the best derned socks ever. lol!

I know when I write the instructions for my own designs, I have a tendency to over-explain things to make certain that whatever direction someone approaches from, it's clear what to do. And yet sometimes after all of that, there's still someone who needs more.

Nyssa, who sometimes tends to think too much At River's End

I haven't actually done the pattern, what number row are you referring to, see if it makes sense to me....

cher....don't ever give up...we'll get there