Johnson - Toe-up socks for every body: adventurous lace, cables, and colorwork from Wendy Knits

Copyright 2010 by Wendy D. Johnson

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.pottercraft.com

POTTER CRAFT and colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Wendy D.
Toe-up socks for every body : adventurous lace, cables, and colorwork from Wendy Knits / Wendy D. Johnson. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-58701-5
1. KnittingPatterns. 2. Socks. I. Title.
TT825.J6485 2009
746.432041dc22
2009029658

Photography by Alexandra Grablewski
Illustrations by Kara Gott Warner

The author and publisher would like to thank the Craft Yarn Council of America for providing the yarn weight standards and accompanying icons used in this book. For more information, please visit www.YarnStandards.com.

v3.1

Project Index

I probably dont need to convince you that hand-knit socks are wonderful. Most knitters seem to intuitively grasp the possibilities inherent in these tiny garmentsthe sizing that is easily adjusted to fit the wearer perfectly, the softness of the yarn that is a joy to behold and to wear. In short, socks are fun to knit. Still, some socks are more fun than others, and I am, and always have been, a fan of toe-up socks. I love not having to graft a toe shut, and I love being able to knit until I run out of yarn.

For years I was content to knit plain vanilla toe-up socks: straight stockinette stitch with a ribbed cuff. But there came a time when I started to think of a plain sock as a blank canvas. My first experiences with sock design were thrilling for me. I have always loved a challenge, and figuring out how to place a pattern in the finite universe that is the circumference of a sock has become one of my favorite pastimes. I enjoy doodling designs, whether lace or cable or colorwork, on bits of graph paper and knitting them up to see if they actually make a sock. And, I further entertain myself by figuring out how to make different patterns work in a variety of sizesfeats of mathematical gymnastics that Ive included for each pattern in this book.

A few years ago, I started making my toe-up sock patterns available for other people to use. Some I posted as free downloads on my website, and others were sold through a retail outlet. Knitters responded to my modest efforts with praise, criticism, questions, and ideas. Through interactive dialogue with many knitters and through my own experimentation, I have refined my sock-knitting ideas and techniques.