Sock Knitters

Every knitter out there has a favorite thing to make. I love to make cowls because I like the way they hang and I prefer to knit in the round. I also like to knit other things, but if I was truly honest with myself cowls are my favorite thing to make.

My friend Linda makes socks almost exclusively. She makes pairs and pairs and pairs of the most beautiful socks you will ever see. She changes up the pattern and the yarn but she loves to knit socks. Every once in a while she will make something else but you can tell that her knitting passion is socks.

I have observed that some knitters don’t just enjoy making socks; they LOVE to make socks. There are other knitters, like me, who enjoy making a cute pair of socks every once in a while, but there definitely seems to be a die-hard sock knitter faction in every knitting community I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of.

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? What is it about sock knitting that creates such devotion?

One of the many great things about socks is that you can make a sock using almost any stitch pattern. Socks also generally all follow the same recipe; there is the cuff, the heel, the gusset, the foot, and the toe. Is it this same predictability that draws people to socks? Is it the satisfying turn of the heel? (I always think that a newly turned heel is one of the most gratifying things on the planet.) Is it that socks have unisex appeal? Is it how quick the socks work up? I may never understand the true devotion to socks of a sock knitter.

I recently finished a pair for my husband (see picture). While we were on the Local Yarn Shop tour in Seattle he found a pair that he desperately wanted me to make for him. Since he was kind enough to take me on the whole tour and didn’t give me a spending limit I made the socks for him. He LOVES them. He says they make his feet feel good. He has been wearing them even though in Tucson right now it is over 100 degrees. He wears them inside because the air conditioning and tile make his bare feet feel cold in the house. He loves the last pair I made him too. I wish I was more of a sock knitter, I know he would love a pair for everyday of the week and then some. He is definitely knitworthy ;).

I have tried to learn how to do two at a time sock knitting and I end up with a tangled mess. When I make socks I prefer to make socks the way I learned, one at a time on good ol’ fashioned set of double points.