I don’t want to droll about my history of socks, so I got this pretty sockyarn a while ago, tried to knit a sock with it, made too many mistakes, and went onto worsted weight socks. I thought I’d try again since I know what I’m doing now, so I don’t have to learn at the risk of fancy yarn.
Well so far I haven’t had any construction problems, but I’m just getting the terrible feeling that my sock is WAY to small. I don’t know anyone who knits personally, the only handknit socks I’ve ever seen have been online, and my feet are on the largish size (size 9/10 womens), so I know socks for someone with size 5 feet is going to be a lot smaller than mine would need to be.
Unless I am mistaken I am getting 10 sts/inch using size US0 needles… That seems a bit much, considering the ‘tag’ for the yarn says ‘6 3/4 sts/inch #4’. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m supposed to use size 4 needles… that’s HUGE!
My foot is a little bit over 8 inches around, so that means I’m going to have around 80 sts on the needles for it to fit… is that reasonable? I’ve only ever heard of people having like, 50-60 sts total for socks.
To scale with my hand - (please ignore the little loose bit of yarn at the toe… I didn’t notice it right away, and didn’t want to start over AGAIN)
With a ruler -
I just want to know if I need to start with like 20 sts for the toe, rather than 8, or if there is no hope to make a human sized sock with this yarn and needles.
Hmmmm…the good thing is that you’re doing this toe-up, so you’ll be able to try it on as you go. When you’re done with the increases, give it a go and see if you need to make additional increases to fit your foot (that’s what I had to do for my current project). If so, just adjust the pattern for them. It looks like you’ve made a good start, though.
I haven’t got a pattern… I’m not good enough yet to modify them into something I would actually be comfortable wearing, so I’m just making it up as I go along, leaving the fancy patterning for the leg. I wasn’t too worried about getting the sock to fit, as that’s why I choose to do it Toe-up.
I just thought that 80sts seemed like a lot, especially when compared with how tiny the toe is so far, so I wondered if your guys’ socks have such tiny toes (the actual point of mine only fits over my big toe, after all!)
I made a mistake making my toe-up socks too big once because they seemed too small for my toes. So I went from a 60 st sock to an 80 st sock and was swimming in it. I have size 71/2 feet. My husband has size 10 1/2 feet and I am doing 84 st for him. I haven’t gotten far enough past the toe to know for sure yet, but it seems right. The yarn is Opal, very thin, on size 0 needles. If I am right about his size, you might need to go down by around 10 st, I would say.
NOTE: I have only finished knitting 2 pairs of socks and am clearly NOT an expert! Good luck!
Just saw that you decided on 80 stitches yourself for your foot… why is this problematic for you? If you want to do socks with fewer stitches that wil still fit you unfortunately will need a thicker wool. Try on the toe at 72 and 76 stitches if you are worried. Socks can be of almost any stitch number, I’ve done adult socks with 32 stitches and will soon do one with almost 100 st.
Sarah
I don’t think 80 st is too many… that is how many I use when making socks with Sockotta yarn on size 1 DPNs. Course, I do have big fat size 9-1/2" wide feet! :teehee:
Thanks so much everyone! You’ve smooshed my worries down to little bits of nothingness!
Having nothing more than the internet for my contact with the knitting society can have its downfalls, but I wouldn’t even be knitting if it weren’t for websites like this!
