THE DAILY CHUM

Welcome to the second sock CHUMtorial – this time we’ll be working from the toe up towards the cuff, on 1 circular needle!

This time you need sock yarn, and a long circular needle, at least 80 cm / 32 in long, to provide enough room to maneuver, but not enough to strange yourself or the merging sock. Don’t fear, this is easier than it looks!

Read on for the fun part – how to knit the toe!

So – toe up it is this time! I wanted to show you two different ways of toe construction, but one of the cats ate my second camera SD card, so the first one is lost – BUT I myself learned it from a great tutorial, here, so take a look, those instructions are really great!

Let’s start with the toe then – doing a provisional crochet cast-on!

So what you need first is some waste sock yarn, preferably in a very different color than your project yarn.

I used green yarn, contrasting good with the lilac one I’ll be using for the sock. Now make a crochet chain slightly longer than what you need – we will be working the toe over 33 stitches, so chain 40 sts, drawing the yarn through the last stitch so the crochet chain won’t unravel on its own.

Now take the chain into your hand, and look closely:

What you see here, with the V’s, is where you would now go through when you crochet – we don’t! Turn the chain around, so that the single row of bumps is facing you

and knit through those bumps!

You need to knit 33 stitches now – or half of what the sock will use in the end! We’ll be doing 66 sts on the foot of the sock, later.

This will then look similar to this:

Now turn your needle around, and take a look -

looks like purl bumps – so we just purl back all 33 stitches as a setup row!

Now we’ll really start the toe – this might be a bit confusing at first, but just follow the steps, and after you’ve done it, it will all be clear! If you’re familiar with wrap-and-turn short rows, this is bnot really new to you anyway

So, first, knit the first 29 stitches, all but the last one.

You now have to wrap this last stitch, without knitting it. To do that, bring the yarn in front of the stitch, as if to purl

and with the right-hand needle (where the other stitches are on) go under the working yarn, and slip the stitch from the left to the right needle:

The working yarn is now between the two stitches!

Now turn the work around so the purl side is facing you, wrap the working yarn aropund the last stitch, and slide it onto the other needle.

Now start purling back the row. After 2 sts, it will look like this:

Apart from the yarn splitting, you can clearly see the difference between the first slipped stitch, and the other purled stitches. Now purl until the last stitch of the row – gotta wrap that bugger now, too!

Therefore, put the working yarn behind the needle, as if to knit, and slip the last sts onto the right-hand needle.

Now turn your toe around so the knit side is facing you:

Holding the working yarn behind the stitch, slip it onto the right hand needle – voilá, wrapped the stitch!

Continue knitting now:

See the difference again?

Now knit back until the last stitch before the wrapped stitch, wrap and turn again (just take care that the first wrapped stitch does not slide off your needle – guess where I know it wants to!), purl back, wrap and turn here, too. After several rows, it should look like this:

Continue this until you have 8 wrapped stitches on every side of your toe-to-be – you should now be ready for a knit row. Rejoice, half the toe is finished already!

Now follows the second half – for that, knit all the remaining unwrapped stitches until you are at the end of the row.

See the wrap at the base of the stitch here? Now, go with the right-hand needle from bottom to top through that wrap, picking it up onto the needle.

Now knit the stitch that was wrapped.

and pass the picked-up wrap over the stitch, similar to a psso!

Now, similar to before, wrap and turn the next stitch – this one will now have 2 wraps!

Purl back the whole row, until you come to the wrapped stitches on the other side of the row. Here we will do the same, with just a little extra fumbling – because the wrap to pick up is picked up on the knit side, which is now the back side of your knitting piece.

best you just look over onto the knit side (I turned the picture back from upside-down), and take up the wrap, again from underneath to above. This might require a little force, but it works, believe me.

Now purl the before wrapped stitch – and pass the picked-up wrap over!

Again wrap the next stitch as before – it now has two wraps!

This was kind of a setup round again – now you’ll just go on this way, but will have two wraps to pick up together, the knit the wrapped stitch, and pass both wraps together over the knitted stitch:

Don’t forget to wrap the following stitch every time!

The same for the purl side:

believe me, the wraps are much more visible on your actual sock! Picking up those two wraps on the purl part might be a bit wicked, but it works, somehow. And it’s worth the trouble!

After a few rounds your toe will slowly shape up:

between the green lines you see how the wrap&turn/psso maneuver slowly works out – you get a very neat toe, with no holes! I will spare you the other side, because my knit stitches always get so wonky. But it looks similar on other people’s socks!

And then, after doing all 8 stitches – your toe is all neat and done!

I’m a toe in the wind, watch how I soar!

Ooops, wrong movie

Now the only thing that keeps up from knitting the foot of the sock is the cast on. This now has to go!

If you’re unsure, now’s the time to thread a life-line! Just to be sure …

When you look at the cast on now, you see that the lilac stitches are visible between the green pumps. Now take a second circular needle, or a DPN, and start picking up the stitches, from top to bottom (towards the toe):

This will soon look like this:

… and soon you’re nearly done:

Now undo the ends of the crochet chain, and unravel it:

Which will end in this:

oh, and of course, this, too!

And now, you’re set and ready to go!

Last, a few words about magic loop – knitting a sock on one circular needle. This is neat, fast, and you won’t ever poke yourself again. To arrange the stitches onto one circ (the pink needle with the white cable), take up the needle end where your working yarn is coming out of the toe – and start knitting the stitches off the other needle (the yellow addi turbo here):

When you have knit all stitches, ypu’ll see that a cable loop now connects the two lines of stitches on the needles:

Now push the second part of the stitches onto the now free needle, working yarn is on the back needle here – those you just knit -

and now slide those stitches, on the back needle, back onto the cable, so you have enough cable at the needle to start knitting again!

And this, you are now doing as long as your sock needs to be knit!

You might want to add a few stitches in the first few rounds if the foot comes out too tight – because this sock you can try on in every stage of the making!

Best you measure the toe now – the heel will be done similar, so it will have the same depths as the toe. Mine is usually 4 cm / 1.75 inch deep.

Start knitting either stockinette, or with a pattern – but pattern only on the needle stitches at the top of the foot – it gets quite uncomfortable on the sole stitches. Knit until you’re about as far from the end of the sole as you need to be – for me that’s 4 cm. here we will pick up at the heel on Sunday!

Sorry for the delay – and as always, if you have problems, just ask! Either write a comment, or email me at peachy@limenviolet.com!

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