Celebrating Socktober!
Saxe Point Socks: Parm's feet resting on a grey knit blanket. She's wearing striped Saxe Point socks in shades of grey, brown, and red with colourwork flowers at the cuffs.
Socktober
Ah yes, that special time of year when you can add an “S” to the beginning of the month’s name and make it into a knitting season! It truly is a gift.
This is the first year I’ve heard of Socktober, but I am, naturally, a hundred percent on board and in the spirit of celebrating the season, here are some sock patterns you might love to knit!
Sun and Moon Socks: Jess' feet resting on a gnarly boulder. She's wearing blue socks that fade from light at the cuff to dark at the toe with yellow toes and sun motifs around the toe. The leg is textured.
Okanogan Socks: Feet in hiking boots and dark grey socks with brick orange stripes around the legs. They're topped off with pale grey cuffs.
A Checklist of Birds Socks: Kiya's feet on a park bench. She's wearing colourful, striped socks.
Wildflower Meadow Socks: Andrea's feet dangling over the edge of a wrought iron chair with socks that fade from magenta at the cuffs through blue to green at the toes. The cuffs and toes have contrasting leafy colourwork.
Saxe Point: This is my most popular sock pattern and one of the very first designs I created in collaboration with Catherine at Gauge Dye Works. Since we first published them, Catherine has created a bunch more colourways to celebrate this pattern, most recently, In Bloom, a very Rainbow Bright, cheery version. We’ll also be bringing back the holiday yarn, Twinkle, next month! Sign up for my newsletter if you want to be sure you don’t miss that!
Sun and Moon: I do love to celebrate the natural world in my designs and this pattern is all about the sky. The pattern includes interchangeable motifs of simple suns and moons so you can choose which energy you’re feeling today or mix-and-match to get the balance you need. The original colourways were designed by Catherine at Gauge Dye Works for our SKY collection, but this pattern could be the perfect thing for pairing a special skein of sock yarn with some leftover bits of a contrasting colour.
Okanogan: I designed this pattern in partnership with Tolt Yarn and Wool to be the perfect hiking sock. They’ve got reinforced heels and toes and an option for a shaped leg so they stay put while you’re on the trail. Plus, they’ve got classic outdoor styling with ribbing and contrasting stripes.
A Checklist of Birds: This one is the most recent pattern collaboration with Catherine at Gauge. We were inspired by our local birds and a Checklist created by the Victoria Natural History Society. The textured panels along the front of the sock are actually charts showing how common different birds are throughout the year. It’s secret code stuff! You can get the yarn right now too, in the Multi-Birds yarn shown above, or in single-bird yarn with repeating stripes that celebrate just one bird. See the Gauge website for the yarn.
Wildflower Meadow: This lovely top-down sock has sweet leafy motifs adorning the cuffs and toes. It’s perfect for practicing your colourwork with just a few rounds of it for each sock. They’re worked top-down with a sturdy heel flap and gusset construction that fits beautifully. You could also replace the cuff leaf motif with cute owls from my book AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary like Mandy did!
What about you?
Tell me about your favourite socks! Do have a top-down or toe-up preference? And what about heels? I’ve always loved the heel flap, but I’m getting very seriously into the short row heel these days. Leave a comment to share your sock knitting loves!
My current sock-in-progress is a simplifying mod of A Checklist of Birds. I’m using it as a plain template to make some Solar System Socks! I sure love that round toe. More on this project soon! (Feeling pretty pleased at my black background aesthetic choice for this space-themed project. It’s like the WIP is floating in the vacuum!)
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