I have been working on a pair of socks for my son. My aunt had wanted to make him a pair of socks to go with his lederhosen but sadly she has been having trouble with her hands. I recently discovered the project at my mother's house. My mom didn't know she had it! Anyway, the yarn and needles were there, but it looked like the ribbing she had started has been outgrown... so I ripped it out and started over on a design of my own for these socks.

I got a chance to try a few new techniques in this project.

I used the jogless stripe technique which is virtually invisible when combined with ribbing. (picture)


I also tried cleaning up the stripes in the ribbing by knitting the whole round when a new color is introduced. Usually stripes in ribbing will be jumbled up in the purl columns- but by doing all knit it prevents that- and when you quickly revert to the k2 p2 pattern- the texture is pretty well preserved. Things I noted in my test swatch of this technique...

1. The rib is slightly pushed out by the knit stitches, it does not contract as small as pure ribbing would- but it has the same potential when stretched outward. The overall sizing is not changed- but if you were doing this in a design that is intended to cling tightly when not stretched- the knit trick might cause the striped areas to be puckered.

2. The rib is no longer symmetrical on both sides, with the wrong side being very decorated with the funky purled stripes- if you want to be able to cuff your knitting- better stick to plain ribbing without this trick. The wrong side is shown in the blurry sidebar picture.

I liked the design I came up with for these, there is a paired decrease going down the back of the leg creating a decorative seam and a cable on either side. At the ankle the ribbing front to back is symmetrical.

I also had a great time using a "new to me" needle handling technique- that is simple- just put the new DPN on top of the old needle before knitting the first stitch of the new section- very easy tight stitch- no more DPN gaps!

One sock down, one to go.