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And now for our regularly scheduled sock knit-a-long!
So I haven’t given you any numbers up until now because I didn’t want to influence your sock at all. Hopefully now you have two small tubes that look like end caps for your feet.The numbers for mine go something like this …
My gauge was exactly 7 stitches and 10 rows to the inch using 2.25mm needles. The width of my “red line” was 2.5 inches, so that meant I had to cast on 2.5 x 7 x 2 stitches – or 36 stitches. The length of my blue line was 7/8ths of an inch so I had to knit 9 rows. I knit 10 just because. I now have two little caps – one green and one pink. I’m doing two different colors to show the differences as we go along. The pink one will be the left foot and the green one the right.
Here’s where you have a couple of options. Neither is more right, whichever path you take is entirely up to your preference. You can make your socks so that there are left and right ones, or just make them so that the different feet are interchangeable. Whichever option you choose, you’ll need to pick out your stitch markers, and it’s probably a good idea to have a sheet of paper and a pencil to keep track of your increases.
Time for a little math here, so you can put your needles down for a minute. If you did the cuff down socks with us before, you know that we measured around the cuff to find out how many stitches we needed on the widest part of the sock. We did that by multiplying the circumference by our gauge. When we finished turning the heel, we decreased to that number and used it for the foot as well. This time, we’re going to find the widest part of the foot and use that measurement, and do the same for the cuff when we get to it later. It makes for a better fitting sock and as such, more comfortable.
So you need to take two measurements now. Using your trace or your foot, find the widest part of your foot and measure that. We’ll call that “X”. In my case that’s 3.5″
Then measure the distance between where you are with your sock and the point where you hit the widest part of your foot. We’ll call that “Y”. In my case that’s 2.5″
In the diagram below, “X” is the green line, and “Y” is the orange one.
Now you need to multiply “X” by 2 to get the circumference (7″). Now multiply that number by your gauge (49 sts) . I like to add about 10% – 15% (56) to accommodate for the “depth” or “thickness” of your foot. This is the number of stitches you need to have on your needles by the time you get to the widest part of your foot. Let’s call this number “B” and the number of stitches you currently have on your needles “A” (36).
Now the tricky math. Well, not really tricky, but you may have to fudge it a bit to get it to work right. So we have 2.5″ to increase from 36 stitches to 56 – or 20 stitches. By my gauge, 2.5″ equates to 25 rows. Again, we’ll use 26 as that’s an even number and everything will work out better that way. Ideally, we’ll only increase every other row, so that gives us 26/2 = 13 rows to increase on.
We’ll increase a total of 4 stitches on each increase row.so we need to divide the number of stitches we need to increase by 4. In my case that’s 20/4 = 5. So we’ll have 5 rows to increase on. If you want to increase on both sides of your sock and have them be similar, you can do the math and work out your increases. However, if like me, you’d like a left and right sock, it’s not that simple.
You need to account for that and this is where you may have to do a little fudging. I have to increase 20 stitches. If I increase on both sides the first 2 times, that’s a total of 8 stitches (4 x 2), and that leaves me with 12. Then I can just increase on the left side of the sock for the next 6 increases, and I’ll have increased my 20 stitches. This will also give my sock a look more like the foot it’s going to be adorning!
That’s also only 8 increases and I have 13 to work with. So I could get a little more creative and say increase 4 stitches every 4th row twice, then work my 2 stitch increases every other row 6 times. I know, you’re saying that that’s 14 increases, and you’re right. However, I’m going to start my first increase row on row 1, so they’ll all fit before I knit the 26 rows. As a matter of fact, they’ll fit in by row 19.
I know this sounds a little confusing, but if you chart it out on a piece of paper, you can play around with it to make it fit and you’ll discover that it’s not that complicated after all.
So now, the only thing you have to make sure of is that you’re doing the increases in the correct place. What you need to do is divide your stitches in half. In my case, that’s 18. Now stitches 18 and 19 will be the same all the time, these are the two middle stitches and we’ll increase on either side of them. We’ll do the same for stitches 1 and 36 as well, the first and last. These will be the border stitches for my increases, so I’ll want to place a stitch marker on 1 and 18. I will increase after the first stitch, before the 18th stitch, after the 19th stitch, and before the 36th stitch. That way I will have a nice uniform pattern to the increases. Once I drop down to just two increases, for the left foot they will be after the 1st stitch and before the 36th. For the right it’s before the 18th and after the 19th. Since you’re increasing before the 18th stitch, you’ll be able to leave the stitch marker there, even though it won’t be the 18th stitch after the first increase.
Okay, hopefully you’re still with me and that’s not too confusing. Give it a go and see how it turns out. Remember to do BOTH feet! I’ll check back with you in a day or two!
Hugzzz 😎
* Quick side note here … If you want to put a pattern or design into your sock, you’ll want to start it at some point here. You can pick any place to start it, but somewhere shortly after your first few increases would be ideal, as you’ll have enough stitches in the pattern to work with. Also, you’ll probably only want to do it on the TOP of the sock, as textures on the sole might be uncomfortable to walk on. Just sayin’.