Well, last week I couldn't get online for 6 days due to a foulup by Verizon. (The idjits cut off entire phone exchanges from incoming calls from my exchange, which included my dialup numbers!).
Since I couldn't read email, news, or check websites, I used the time to finally finish knitting the Socks from Hell..aka the Clocked Socks from the Folk Socks book.
After all of the agony and frogging and cussing they're finally done...and they DON'T FIT!!!
The socks are too *narrow* for my feet. I can get 'em on, but they are *tight*! Dunno what they'll be like after they're washed, but I doubt bigger will be an option.
I'm really wondering about the sizing of the other socks in the book. Yes, I can make them long enough, but how can you check for width while they're still on the needles.
BTW the pattern was for men's socks done in sport wool on size 1 needles. The designer said to make them for women, go down a size needle. So I knit them on size 0s. Sorry, but considering the puny size of these things, ain't no way going up one needle size would make them large enough for a man...unless he has banana feet!
Enough of my misery. I'm already onto another project. This time I'm doing more dog sweaters as Christmas presents for a friend's poochies. At least I won't get any backtalk from the poochies about wrong color, style, etc. lol
Nyssa, who wonders if she'll be brave enough to try another pattern from Folk Socks before the end of the decade
I've read that some people put the stitches on waste yarn in order to try them on. Others use circulars for that.
Years ago on a spinning list someone said that the "Mameluke" sock from Folk Socks, knit as directed, was big enough around but the foot was only long enough for her five-year-old son. Yet that pattern does say to make that sock foot a total of 8 3/4 inches long, which should fit me. Well, some kids have long feet. I know a tiny lady who has surprisingly long thin feet.
The pattern for Stockings with Clocks says to cast on 88 sts, and knit at 15 sts/2in, or 7 1/2 sts/inch. That would be just under 12 inches around, unstretched.
I just checked some socks I knitted at about 7 1/2 sts/inch, using Regia wool sock yarn, and they have 64 stitches around. They fit me. I am not thin. Could it be that you used a yarn that has very little stretch to it? Or maybe knitting very tightly and the yarn lost its stretchiness?
And the patterns ought to be the right size, or at least less finicky.
I think it's yet another case of swatch and check the pattern against your gauge, to be sure that _that_ many stitches will fit around _your_ foot. Also check the length.
Geez...what a disappointment and after all that work and aggravation too....I have the opposite problem when I make socks, they're too big around my foot and ankle. I've had to go down a needle size or two when I make mine. Have to hand it to you though, you're brave to do that sock pattern! Marie and the cats
Did you check your gauge? Most of the socks in Folk Socks will fit me with some adjustment for length, in circumference a few are too roomy.
Why wonder? Each pattern tells you the gauge at which to knit and the number of stitches on which to work. Make a swatch, match the gauge, do the math to figure out how big the sock will be.
GAUGE. Measure your foot, check your gauge, do the math.
Did you check your GAUGE? Chances are you'd have been fine on size 1 needles if you matched the GAUGE.
Or unless you were knitting at a smaller GAUGE?
Wooly Who likes to harp about GAUGE, obviously :)
PS -- those socks will fit somebody
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Nobody that I know. I'm the only person I know who prefers knee socks, which these are.
BTW no GAUGE was given for the down-a-needle-size version.
And yes, if a GAUGE is given, I do a test swatch and adjust needle size as necessary.
I think the biggest problem with these socks is the combination of sport weight yarn that the pattern calls for with the tiny sized needles. It makes a nice looking fabric, but it has absolutely *no* "give" to it. Most socks will have some stretch to them to fit snugly, but comfortably.
And IMO even doing them on size 1 needles wouldn't have made that much of a difference in stretch or fit to matter. Possibly using fingering weight yarn is the answer, but I'm in no hurry to do another pair of these.
My round foot just don't fit in 'em!
Nyssa, who wonders why Wooly keeps shouting GAUGE like she's hard of hearing lol
Oh, they'll fit somebody. You know a skinny little teengirl who'll wear them...
No - but its given for the original pattern. Per my math the cast-on edge of the cuff is 11.75" in diameter, decreasing to a tad over 9" after the shaping and maintaining that diameter through the foot to the beginning of the toe shaping.
So a smart knitter will measure the intended wearer at the height at which the sock is advertised to ride on the calf as well as measuring that same intended's foot diameter. Armed with this information and the required gauge from the pattern one can then adjust the pattern as required to fit the foot as presented for covering.
Did you swatch in the round or did you swatch back-and-forth? The easiest way to do that for socks is to just start the sock. Most people knit at a different gauge when knitting flat stockinette than they do when knitting circular stockinette. Some knit more tightly, some knit more loosely, but I don't belive I know *anyone* who can accomplish the same gauge flat and in the round using same yarn and same-size needles for both swatches.
I'd take issue with that statement. I made the socks to gauge, using the specified yarn though I don't recall the needle I used to achieve the specified gauge. Until my accident last summer I was a tight knitter and typically had to go up two, sometimes three needle sizes to make gauge. Now I'm a loose woman, but that's a different subject for a different thread.
At any rate. The socks I made fit the intended wearer - a friend of mine who has about 4" height on me but who can wear my shoes as if they were made for her. The socks are not unstretchy, they're not air-conditioned. They're just socks, well-knitted and with well-darned heels because they are much-loved by the wearer and worn often.
I'll submit then that you were not knitting to gauge but were probably knitting tighter in the round than your (inferred) flat swatch said you would. Using a finer yarn is one approach to fixing the "problem" but an alternative method is to go up a needle size, or even two. It sounds as if you were knitting quite tightly and haven't yet bothered to measure gauge on the knitted socks. Doing so will tell you volumes about your knitting :)
Or possibly you have wider feet than the pattern-as-written will accomodate. Whatever the case you should measure, work a circular swatch for gauge, then do the math. The clocked socks are particularly easy to adjust for fit, as the "pattern" is 80% stockinette with a bit of knit-purl texture running down each side.
Because I take Elizabeth Zimmerman's and Maggie Righetti's view of GAUGE - a knitter isn't a knitter unless she understands GAUGE and knows how to make it work. Without a good working knowledge of gauge you'll always be trying to "find somebody it'll fit"...unless you stick to afghans :D
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