THE DAILY CHUM

Welcome to the CHUMtorial, our own tutorial series!

In just a few words, what is this about? Well, there are things that are dear to our hearts, like sock knitting – and there are still people out there who don’t knit socks! Those two things don’t go well together, so the phenomenal idea came up to just MAKE people knit socks – with our own tutorial series, the CHUMtorial!! Now sock, later lace, then world domination!!

At the end of each project (e.g. when the sock is finished) the whole tutorial will be compiled to pdf format and be readily available for download and print out!

At least at the moment it is all about socks. First the cuff-down, then the toe-up version, coming to your home 2 times a week (Tuesday and Friday). There should be enough time in between to try yourself what you saw here, step-by-step, and pose questions, either as comments, or directly at me, at peachy@limenviolet.com. I’ll try to answer all as fast as possible, and if more people ask the same thing, it will be part of the next CHUMtorial.

So, today you will learn how to cast on a cuff-down sock, work the cuff, and down the leg until the heel starts. I presume that all of you know how to knit, how to purl, the rest will come easy to you, I promise!

First off, the prerequisites:

You need some sock yarn – any 4-ply will do, like Lorna’s Laces, Koigu, and most you get on etsy. I’m using sock yarn from YarnAddict yarns, in the Golden Delicious colourway, just so you know. Normally I use more variegated yarns for easy patterns, but for the sake of seeing things better I’m staying with a near-solid. use all the variegated goodness you can find!

You also need a set of 5 DPNs – I use aluminum ones because I constantly break the bamboo, the important thing is that they are slick enough so the stitches won’t be glued to the yarn, but not too slick to prevent them just slipping off the needles. I’m using 2.5mm / US size 1.5 – just try some that feel good to you and are about that size.

Now one thing up front – for sock knitting tension is important. I never yet knit a test swatch for socks, but I knit very tightly here, and you should, too, or the sock will be kind of sloppy in the end. Still, the most important thing is that you knit with EVEN TENSION – or you’ll have socks in 2 different sizes once you have the pair finished.

So, let’s begin!!

First, cast on 64 stitches.

I used the long-tail cast on because I’m a contintental knitter, and I learned that to be the ONLY cast on there is, so my mind will forever wail at any other. Just mind that it should be a stretchy cast on, or you will have problems slipping the sock up your leg. believe me, I’ve been there! So if you know you have cat on tension problems, cast on with a larger needle(s).

Next you have to distribute the sts evenly on 4 DPNs:

To do this, slip the free DPN tip purlwise under the stitch (or two at a time). You’ll need 16 sts per DPN.

When all sts are distributed, this will look like this, a square porcupine:

Take care not to twist sts! See those badly drawn red lines? That should mark the aligned lower parts of the stitches. If it looks like this it is okay.

Here, the lower parts are twisted:

This will not make you happy. Just push them with your fingers until it looks like on the upper picture!

Next, we join for knitting in the round!

See, me continental! But however you knit, this is the same – take the first and last DPN in the same hand (possibly with the same finger), so that the first and last stitch are next to one another. Hold the yarn taught, knit a stitch with the 5th, free DPN!

If the porcupine effect scares you – that picture is the worst. Actually knitting it is not as bad as it looks, and you’ll soon get used to it!

Here I did the cuff in a k1, p1 rib – so after the first knit stitch, tighten the yarn on the first stitch, purl 1, tighten, k1 … you get the concept. Ending with a purl stitch, you then have your first dpn done!

For the cuff ribbing, you will always start with 1 k1, and end with a p1 on each DPN. After the first round you can just check how you did the row below – all stitches should align. Just so you get a hang on things – this is how I usully hold the bugger, keeping the needles at bay:

Here the merging sock after 2 rounds. By now everything should be a stable square, so no more fighting the needles to slip away from the round – just fighting the needles not to get poked too much

See how the stitches are aligning?

For closer detail, see here:

In red, I marked the knit v’s, and in cyan the purl bumps. Here we are in the 5th row – just so you find your way!

Continue this until you have worked 10 full rows – you should now see the snail of yarn from the cast on directly between the two DPNs last worked/ready to go:

Of course you can make a larger cuff, but I’m used to do 10 rounds, so I never have to check back with the first sock when I’m doing the second.

Now we’re starting the leg. I picked a very simply stitch pattern here:

Row1: knit all sts.
Row2: *k1, p1* to the end.

If you have problems seeing where the round starts, just use a stitch marker. After a few pattern “repeats” you’ll get into this by yourself and don’t need to check so often. I usually just check if the purl bump below is directly at the needle, then I have to knit the whole DPN, or if it’s a bit below, a new k1, p1 row will follow.

Feel free to use any stitch pattern you like – also stockinette is good, but is not as easy to count. And if you’re as anal retentive as I am and you have to make 2 exact duplicate socks, look for a way to make row counting easy on you!

Now knit as many rounds as you like, ending with row 2. I did 30 rows, because I’m lazy, and want to have short socks for once. Most patterns use between 60-70 rows, but knit as far as you like. If you have very shapely legs, keep in mind that the diameter of your leg increases towards the knee – for the sake of keeping this first sock simple, stay below the shapely part with the sock. The last row will be just at your Achilles Tendon, so estimate how far from there to where your calf muscles get more prominent – that’s the maximum how far you should knit. In the future you can the add decreases towards the heel with more sts at the cast on – but that’s for LATER. Now we do it the EASY way

My sock now looks like this:

Although the stitch pattern is similar to the cuff pattern, you can see the difference from afar, and in the cluseup:

That’s it for today!

So, your homework for this week, until Friday, is to do just this. Cast on, work the cuff, knit the leg part until the heel is ready to be done.

Remember, if you encounter any problems, write a comment or email me!

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