Celebrate Socks Tips and Tutorials

Closeup of Catherine's feet wearing colourful socks with bright triangles all over them. They change colours in a retro rainbow against a white background.

Our Knit Along is Going Strong!

Have you shared your project or had a look at what other folks are up to in the Gauge Ravelry group? The conversation and project mods are really fun to see.

I shared a bunch of tips and links in the KAL and I want to post them here too, so they’re in a permanent place that folks don’t have to hunt through the thread for.

Modification Ideas

Want to do your socks a bit different than the pattern? That’s great! Here are some possible mods:

Use a different cast-on method. I suggest long-tail because I like it and I think it works well for top-down socks. But cable cast-on would work just as well! I don’t suggest a tubular cast-on just because every time I’ve tried it for socks, it’s been too tight, but I’m not going to stop you if that’s what you prefer.
Work your sock toe-up. I don’t have specific instructions for this, but this pattern would work just as well worked in the other direction, so if you have a go-to toe up sock you like to follow, go for it!
Work an afterthought heel instead of the short row heel. I love a short row heel because when the sock is done, it’s done. But if you’re not happy with the short row heel, put some waste yarn in there and do an afterthought one instead. I don’t recommend a heel flap and gusset because the extra stitches distort the striping pattern.
Adjust the lengths of the leg and foot as you like. There’s enough yarn to make both leg and foot a bit longer, or make them shorter to suit your preference and foot size. The colourwork motif is only 4 rounds long, so work more or fewer repeats of the pattern.
Things to think about before you cast on
Choose a size that’s pretty close to your foot circumference. If it’s too tight, the colourwork won’t stretch enough to fit over your heel because colourwork is less elastic than Stockinette or ribbing.'
You don’t need to divide your yarn while you’re winding. Just wind it all into one ball, keeping in mind whether you like to knit from the outside or the centre of the ball. For example, start winding with the green end if you want to start with the blue and knit from the outside of the ball.
Have a look at the Yarn Colour Map on page 3 of your pattern before you begin. I started my socks with the pale blue end. If you start at the green end, your stripes will go the other way. I just knit my first sock from the whole ball and when it was time to knit my second sock, I wound off the yarn until I reached another pale blue section so my second sock would match. If you don’t need your socks to match exactly, just keep knitting the second sock where you left off from the first.
Have your bigger needle on hand for once you’re finished with your cuff. Most knitters need to work colourwork with a larger needle in order to maintain gauge. Instead of swatching for a sock, I usually use the leg as my swatch, so check the gauge and make sure it fits over your heel after a few inches of knitting.
Colourwork Tips & tutorials
Here’s a link to my top colourwork tips.

Here’s a video showing how to knit colourwork with 2 hands.
Here’s a video showing how to knit your sock inside out if you struggle with keeping your floats the right length.
Here’s a little self-promotion : If you really love colourwork, here’s a link to my Patreon where you can get exclusive colourwork charts every month and a link to my colourwork stitch dictionaries, KnitOvation and AlterKnit.

Short Row Heel Tips

Here’s a link to my short row heel video.

Sometimes the stitches at the corners of the heels get stretched out a bit and look huge. You can fuss with those stitches and try drawing that extra yarn into neighbouring stitches. This can require a little patience because it’s not always obvious where the yarn is coming from with the short row shaping.
Not into the short row heel? Try an afterthought heel. When the pattern says to do the short row heel, knit waste yarn into the heel stitches instead, then go back to your main yarn and just keep working as though the heel was finished. When you’re done with the sock, take out your waste yarn to work your afterthought heel. If you need more heel depth than the classic afterthought heel gives, you can work a few rounds plain before starting the afterthought heel decreases.
For the sock nerds, here’s a bit about why this sock isn’t designed with a heel flap and gusset: I love a heel flap and gusset, but we’ve never managed to design a sock that uses both self-striping yarn and flap and gusset construction. If you look through the portfolio of socks that Catherine and I have collaborated on, the only gusset socks we have are on gradient yarns, not on stripes. The reason is that even if you were to work your heel flap and heel turn in a contrasting yarn, the gusset has a lot more stitches than the leg or foot of a sock. With self-striping yarns, that means that the stripes during the gusset shaping with be a lot skinnier than the leg and foot stripes. Now Catherine is brilliant and could feasibly control for something like that if we were making it in just one size. But folks have different size feet and different preferences for leg and foot length, so we’ve never figured out a way that we could make that kind of thing work for in multiple sizes. I didn’t actually try it when I was designing the project, but I think that if you were to work a gusset construction with the Celebrate yarn, you’d probably have stripes that were like 1 round long, so maybe changing colours 2 or three times during a little triangle motif. Would that look cool? Maybe! I don’t know! If someone wants to try it, I support you! But your stripes will not be of uniform width like the are with the short row or afterthought heel.

Finishing Tips

I like to weave in my ends before blocking because it makes them more secure.

I always use duplicate stitch to weave in ends. Here’s a tutorial.
To block, soak your socks in room temperature water with a little gentle soap for about 20 minutes. Empty the sink and refill with clean water and swish your socks around gently to rinse. Squeeze the extra water out and then put the socks on a towel. Roll the towel up and squeeze any extra water out. Lay flat to dry.
I don’t bother with sock blockers. They can change the size of your socks, so be sure if you want to use them that they’re the right size for your feet. They are super cute for photography though!
To sew on your little tag, grab matching thread and a needle and just whip stitch through the little holes, matching the inside ones to the outside ones. You can have the starburst logo or “Celebrate” on the outside.
I can confirm now that the tags are washable! My experiment showed that the tag actually dried a bit faster than the sock itself. It turned a very dark red when wet, but has regained its original colour after drying. I haven’t tried putting it in the washing machine yet.

The Celebrate Sock pattern and yarn will be available to the general public in spring, 2025. See other collaborations I’ve done with Gauge Dye Works here.

If you love colourwork, join me on Patreon!