Sock it to me, baby!

Socks! Everyone wears 'em, no one really thinks about them that much. You pay, what, a tenner or so for 5 pairs, wear 'em until they're worn out and then replace them. 

But since taking up knitting and crochet, I've spent AGES trying to understand the three dimensional structural construction of socks, diligently following both crocheted and knitted patterns, some made 'in the round' and some made flat and sewn together - with absolutely little or no success in actually making a pair. 

I'd come to the conclusion (as many knitters and crocheters have) that socks should cost a million pounds a pair in terms of the sheer effort involved in making something to fit round our odd appendages (let's face it, feet are DARNED WEIRD!) but I was determined to try and make another pair to replace my worn out slipper socks, so got the crochet hook out. 

This tutorial - Toe Up Knit Socks and Toe Up Crochet Socks | 2020 Sock-Along - Marly Bird - is absolutely brilliant, and uses a method I'd never even considered before. 

Normally when I start out making a pair of socks, I make the 'cuff' bit first (the bit that fits around your leg / upper ankle) then work my way down before hitting the two problems common to sock making. The heel - that damned heel - and working around the hole you need to leave in order to work the heel separately, and then proceeding right down to the closure at the toe, leaving a nice neat toe with no seams (because any seams will rub or irritate your feet). 

The tutorial flips the idea around so you actually start with a simple chain of 6 stitches, then crochet around them (just like any normal 'crochet in the round' project) working a sort of elongated oval 'tube' to cover the bottom part of your foot. 

You then leave a nice 9 stitch gap, chaining 9 stitches and skipping 9 stitches before continuing to crochet in the round (9 stitches for my clodhopper feet, maybe less for your dainty little toes). 

This leaves the heel gap, allowing you to continue up towards the ankle / cuff with the same circumference as the rest of the foot (the thing I always find easier in crochet is increasing / decreasing, so you can adjust the cuff circumference fairly easy to make it a slightly tighter fit). 

Once the main sock bit is finished, it's then easy enough to work in the round in the hole left for the heel (I chose a different coloured yarn here just to highlight the difference in both bits of the sock). 

At last! A Sock, an actual wearable sock! I found this method far easier than any others I've tried, you still get that nice 'seamless' look from crocheting in the round, and you get all the structural elements sorted out so it fits nicely and snugly. I worked in double crochet here which was better for making a kind of slipper sock thing, but I'm now interested in making something with DK gauge wool with finer stitches to see if the same pattern would work for a more traditional pair of socks to wear under boots or shoes. 

The next challenge will be to knit a pair. I feel like I can make just about any structural shape with crochet but knitting is still a lot tougher for me but it'd be great to see if I can somehow adapt this for knitting in the round (on round needles) and again start from the toe up.