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Hi – here we are at the sock class.
You have your PDF pattern, and these videos to follow for knitting this worsted-weight
sock.
Now this sock is a good sock – it’s not the greatest for shoving inside of a pair
of shoes, because it’s pretty heavy, but it’s good for kicking around the house.
The best thing about this sock is that we are able to get through all of the elements
of sock knitting really quickly, so you can decide whether or not you enjoy sock knitting,
before you commit yourself to tiny needles and sock-weight yarn.
So, um, how this is going to go is you’re going to follow your pattern, and every now
and then in the pattern it will reference one of the videos here, you can come back
online and watch the video to get you through the sticky parts of the sock.
Because the human food is a pretty strange thing to try to make a piece of clothing for.
And that’s why knitting socks is tricky.
So this is how it’s going to go. We’re starting here at the cuff, and we’re going
to knit down for 2 inches, and then we’re going to knit what is the heel flap.
We pick up stitches for the gusset, and then knit the foot, we do a bunch of shaping for
the toe, and then we learn the kitchener stitch to close it up at the end.
Okay, let’s go ahead and get started.
For this, you’re going to need some worsted-weight yarn. I prefer wool, I prefer Cascade 220,
and a set of 4 double-pointed needles.
For this class you do need to know how to knit and to purl, you don’t need to know
how to use double-pointed needles, we’re going to go over all that right now.
But knowing how to knit and how to purl is essential for this.
And it’s also good if you’ve had enough practice that your tension is pretty even.
Okay, to get started on the double-pointed needles you just need 4 to get going.
You want to do the long-tail cast-on, and cast-on 40 stitches.
Now you have the option of casting them all on to one needle, and then transferring them
over to the other two, or, you can do it the way I’m doing it, I’m going to put 16
on one needle, and then put 12 on the other two.
And while I’m talking I’m not keeping count.
If you want to do it the way I’m doing it, all you have to do is let that first needle
hang, start a loop, and start casting on to the next needle.
Something that you get used to with double-pointed needles is that you’re still only using
2 needles at once, just like regular knitting.
But the other 2 needles, or 3 needles in some cases, just hang there and wait for you to
come back.
I’m going to do the same thing here.
Okay.
The trickiest part of double-pointed needles is actually getting started.
So, I’m going to break this down into easy steps for you to get you going.
Okay, the first thing I want you to do is to lay – to set all of this out in an “H”
shape, just like this.
Might take you a minute to figure this out, working yarn is over here on the right-hand
side.
And all of the knots are on the inside of the “H”.
Like this. Okay?
Make sure that nothing’s twisted at the corners.
And this stitch here, over to the left, is going to be your first stitch.
Your working yarn is here. So when you use this working yarn to knit this stitch, it’s
going to join it in the round.
Before you pick anything up, get your first stitch ready to go by sliding it to the end
of the needle. There you go.
And I always like to use the table for support to keep things from getting twisted.
Okay, so, I’m going to twist this around, slide it around, get my needle in the first
stitch, find the working yarn, and work this stitch.
Now that I have everything together I can pick it up off the table because nothing can
get twisted.
So I knit 1 stitch, I’m going to knit another one.
Now, for the cuff, as you saw here, this is knit 2, purl 2 rib.
So I’ve knit 2 stitches, and now I need to go into purling.
When we switch between knitting and purling in a round, in a row, either, yarn is always
in back to knit, yarn is always in front to purl.
So it’s knit 2, yarn forward, purl 2, yarn back, knit 2, yarn forward, purl 2. And that’s
a surefire way to make sure you don’t accidentally increase while you’re doing this.
Now, we’ve arranged the stitches with 16 on the first needle and 12 on the second 2.
So that you will always end with “purl 2” at the end of every stick.
It’s an easy way to make sure you’re on track with the pattern of knit 2, purl 2.
So let’s keep going, we just knit 2, purl 2, the first round is always the most difficult
from the cast-on row.
The cast-on row is usually a bit tighter, and things are really floppy yet.
So I’m ending with purl 2, which is perfect, which means I’m right on count.
Now I just want to show you, with double-pointed needles, I just used this needle and this
needle, the other 2 were just hanging there.
To keep going, all I do is to find my working yarn, find the stitch to the left of my working
yarn, that’s my next stitch.
So I let the other 2 needles hang there, and it’s just me and this needle now.
And those two are just going to wait for me to come back.
So, you keep doing that for 2 inches, the 2 by 2 rib going around and around.
You don’t need a stitch marker, because where the tail is hanging between the two
needles is the beginning and end of your round.
Two inches of that.
You can go ahead and look back at your pattern for the next time you come back I’m going
to show you how to do the heel flap.