I had time to finish my first crochet sock last night, and with some small changes, I'm going to make its mate hopefully by this weekend and maybe get a picture on my site by next Monday.
I started at the top cuff, crocheting rib, then worked on the leg, divided for the heel, leaving the hole until last, and worked down the foot. Then, I broke off the yarn and reattached it using a contrasting strand of Wooly Nylon for reinforcing and did paired decreases to the tip of the toe and broke off and sewed that seam closed, which doesn't feel too bulky at the tips of the toes.
Then, I joined yarn and contrasting strand to work the heel, not sure what you'd call it, but did my decreases evenly on the sides until it fit without being too loose or too tight, then broke off and sewed it like the toe. Not sure how that will feel on the foot wearing it all day, but after making the second and washing them, I think they should be OK for my sandals which feel a bit rough on my feet anyway because they are very durable hard rubber soles.
If I make more pairs this way, I'll probably combine knit rib for the cuff with crocheted body, because I think knit rib will work better, but I'm going to try and tweak things to see if I can get an all crochet pair of socks to wear with my sandals, then I'll work on all knit pairs to wear in my shoes before I see about combining the two methods.
So far I've been busy with work this week and have not worked on the mate, which I guess will be more of a fraternal twin, same color, just a little different size LOL.
I saw that pattern online before I started designing my own, and it looked really nice, just a little long, as I like ankle socks best for my brisk walks. Longer socks do tend to sag down with the pace I keep. I like to take extra long fast walks on weekends, like doing 6 miles in varied terrain on hiking paths around here in under 2 hours. I'd like to wear my hiking sandals more, but my feet sweat and get slippery and then blistered at that pace, which is why I'm making socks to see if those make it possible to wear them and still take a fast exercise hike.
I thought I put that in there, oops, my bad! I'm using Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted from my stash with 1 reinforcing strand of contrasting colored Wooly Nylon for heel and toe.
Well, I did have to break off the yarn to reattach the toe and heel sections. So I put the sock on and marked one side of my foot at the toe (no need to do this with the heel) with a safety pin, then after reattaching the yarn starting at the marked stitch, I just kept careful track of stitch counts and did the paired decreases at the sides of the toe and heel like you would the tip of a crocheted mitten. This left only a small seam at the very tip of toes and heels that actually I can't feel with the sock on. I have yet to wash it before wearing it, which should smooth it out even more, but I think there won't be any seams that detract from the look of the socks or especially the feel when I get them done (keeping fingers crossed).
I'm using superwash wool, so it should not shrink up too much, but if it does a little bit, that's OK, it will just fit a little more snug on the foot. The first one is snug, but not tight. I wish the rib were tighter, but I can always thread some elastic through it on the back to tighten it up if needed after washing.
We have strange weather here in the winter. In January it was warm enough for sandals with socks, and then in March and now in April, the temperature has plumeted with patchy snow and lots of rain making it very damp and more cold so I pulled out my winter boots again.
NP. I just wish I was better writing out my patterns! I've done hats in the round combining crochet with knit rib, and the results were really nice. I did the hat from the top of the head down, and when I got to where I wanted to do knit rib, I broke off the yarn. Then used a new strand of the yarn and a crochet hook to pick up 1 knit stitch for each crochet stitch I had on the hat, putting loops onto DPN rather than creating a crochet stitch, and then when I had them all on picked up, I used just DPN to do the knit rib around. I'm sure it would work for socks, too. Just have to find the right size. For the hat, I used my trusty G/6/4.0 mm hook and 9 DPN for the rib. Oh, I did have to use point protectors on both sides to keep stitches from sliding off as I was picking up and changing from one DPN to the next.
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