Cat Bordhi just Tweeted a video trailer for her new sock book. This is the one where you knit a tube for the foot, closed at both ends, and then open up a row of live stitches to become the leg. Funky stuff, but an absolute 180 from her last sock book, which was very mathy.
Something I read months ago led me to believe that each foot is just plain stockinette, so all the socks in the book would only have pattern on the leg. I’m happy to see that’s not true! And also happy to see some bits of what seems to be colorwork in the socks. Having just made two types of heel myself, I’m really impressed by the close-ups of her arches and heels and how well they seem to fit.
I’m a big fan of Cat’s New Pathways book so I was planning to buy Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters regardless, but it’s nice to know that I’ll actually be interested in the content. In this video she says she’ll be making others to support the book, including one on cutting the foot open to make the leg. I just hope she explains how the heck you’d make a sock for a foot you don’t have right there available to be measured at every step of building the foot template.
In other news, I may possibly have ordered this Jordana Paige knitting bag. Oh, okay, I totally ordered it. Now I can tell Mom she’s off the hook for supporting me through a dreaded purse-shopping expedition next time she’s in town. Clothes shopping sometimes makes me cranky, shoe shopping usually does, but purse shopping? Worse than a root canal. At least the dentist gives you the happy gas.
Thanks for sharing that information. I’m a sock newbie and I’m struggling through my first pair. I may have to get that book.
Well, both of Cat’s books are pretty out there, in terms of design. I’m not one of those sock knitters who thinks you should learn on DPNs before going to circulars or Magic Loop, but I do think it would be a good idea to know the basics of a traditional sock. New Pathways has a lot of measuring, some simple algebra, and a lot of flipping back and forth between reference charts that are in different places in the book. Her Personal Footprints book that’s out later this month requires that you cut the yarn and unravel a row of the foot, which is kind of scary.
Usually the part of socks that trips people up is the heel – short row heels call for wrapping stitches and then picking up the wraps, and heel flaps call for picking up gusset stitches from the edges of the flap. If you let me know where you’re having problems, I’d be happy to try helping you through it. Or if you want to learn by following along step by step, a good reference is this sock workshop. Her heel uses short rows, but no wraps. It’s the same heel as in this free pattern.