While I was making plans for our European adventure I decided to take a sock on the plane ride. I cast on the toe and did all necessary increases to get to the foot circumference, then switched to my 9 inch circular needles. Usually, I would have split my yarn ball in half so that I would work on one sock, marking my increases and developing my count, then follow that pattern to complete the second sock. I decided that I would change things up for the trip. I decided that it would be most time effective and travel friendly if I cast on a toe, knit a very long tube until I nearly ran out of yarn then created another toe on the other end. When we returned home, or I had access to the necessary accoutrements, I could then divide the tube equally between two or four socks. This ended up being a fantastic idea. I did end up getting bored with my sock while we were traveling and have only just finished working out the details on what I need to remember in the future to make this idea work. I decided to knit this sock tube using 60 grams of the 100 gram ball, and set the other 40 aside. I worked the tube to the last 3 grams of yarn and started my decreases. This left me plenty of yarn left over to kitchener the toe and weave in the end. I could probably even get away with only leaving 2 grams of yarn, but that would be cutting it very close. Allotting 3 grams of yarn, I had less than 1 gram remaining.
I decided to the 60/40 split with the yarn so that I could have one tube from toe to toe and one tube with contrasting toes. I wanted to see what difference this would make for the sock length. I enjoy high socks, but not everyone does. If the tube I knit is going to be turned into two pairs of socks for two different people, that will change the the length of each sock and where I will decide to cut. For the toe to toe tube, I washed and stretched it out so that I would have a nice smooth sock and that would make measuring and cutting easier.
I had to measure and mark for where to divide the two socks and decided to pick up the stitches before I cut the stitch to start unraveling. That was a trial. I did great on three of the 4 needles, then I realized that I picked up the row beneath the row that I was unraveling. And then I proceeded to make the same mistake twice. Gosh, it was fun.
Once I had everything separated it was easy peasy. I increased four stitches before starting the ribbing to give some more ease to the cuff. Then I just knit some ribbing and a stretchy bind off.
Next step was knitting two cuffs and binding off. I decided to knit them for the Female O and needed to find her foot cutout (thank you FLK heel pattern for teaching me to make cutouts for all of my knit worthy people.) I measured the appropriate length to cut her heel in and snipped to knit in an afterthought heel.
And then there were two. The toe to toe pair was complete. I don’t think I will need to do a separate post for the contrast toe pair. It is the same basic principle. I am really glad that I did this. It gives me flexibility for the future and was a fun experiment. I will be happy to gift the finished socks to the Female O. I really hope they fit her and are comfortable for her to wear.
Loves,
M
Mrs. Collins Makes Stuff 