A tale of two socks

My oh my, Socktoberfest is over, but I am yet to show you any completed socks. Well, the good news is, I have completed a pair of socks in October! The bad news is, well, they’re not a matching pair.

On the left, is the Oak Ribbed Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush, and on the right is Child’s First Sock from the same book.

When I started out with Socktoberfest, the main thing I wanted to learn more about was the different construction techniques. I picked the Oak Ribbed Sock pattern because the combination of the french heel and the round toe seemed interesting and unusual. Well, I guess having never knitted top-down socks before, any heel/toe combination would be pretty unusual to me. The other reason I picked this one at the time, was because I wanted a project where I can just do some mindless knitting. Well, I can report that this pattern served well in the mindless knitting department. Just some ribbing, except for when I was doing the heel and toes, of course. But after days with the ribbing pattern, I got rather bored with it and wanted to do another sock pattern before returning to do its mate. Hence the non-matching pair you see here.

The french heel fits me quite well (just as well as my first sock which has short row heel). The Nancy Bush book showcases a number of different types of heels — french heel (aka classic round heel), dutch heel, welsh heel, german heel — all of which use heel flaps. I wonder, those people who like to knit socks with heel flaps, which type of heel do you mean when you say “sock with heel flaps”? Or do different sock patterns use different types of heel?

The round toe, I feel, is not so round, but more ‘pointy’. Well, I guess it’s kind of round, as in, the decreases are spread evenly around the toe instead of just at the sides, making the toe rounder, like the top of a hat. It also seems longer than the average sock’s toe, and is started earlier in the foot. I still think it looks rather pointy though, and rather narrow. If you have pointy toes, this type of toe construction would fit you well. As it is, my toes are rather wide, and this feels rather tight to me.

Overall, it’s a well written pattern. I’m not actually sure whether I’ll go back and do its mate, though, maybe I’ll just try out the other sock patterns with different heels/toes.

The second sock, Child’s First Sock, I picked because I was smitten with this. I had a single ball of Grignasco Bambi, and I wondered if I could make a pair of socks with just this one ball. The yarn has a very good yardage (225m / 50g), but I know it wouldn’t be enough if I make the sock as written in the pattern. So I decided to make these into short socks. I wear lots of short socks, so I know I’ll like it. And it really is an enjoyable knit. After finishing this one, I wasted no time in casting on for its mate. In fact I’m almost done with that one too. So I’ll write more about that when it’s done. Enough rambling for now 🙂