Pattern Review: Choose Your Own Sockventure
Back in January I finally bought my first self-striping sock set. I’d been watching Nicole of Woolfield Studio make self-striping socks for quite awhile and I just hadn’t found the right yarn for me. Especially that didn’t cost an arm and a leg to ship. Then on a yarn crawl – there it was, at Yarn Twisters at the other end of the earth (i.e. south Calgary). It’s called Sock Monkey in Love by Yarn Enabler.
As soon as Nicole’s Choose Your Own Sockventure pattern came out I wound up my yarn and cast on while on a girls getaway at my friend’s cabin. It was the perfect thing to take to work on while socializing because self-striping yarn does all the work, you just keep doing stockinette in the round. And I didn’t even have to keep track of rows because I could just count the stripes for sock number 2!
This sock was the first time I did a traditional short row heel, chosen because of how it looks with the contrast colour. Nicole’s pattern includes both a short row heel and heel flap and gusset option, the 2nd of which I’ve done on lots of other socks without contrast heels.
The other benefit of the short row heel is that you don’t have to pick up stitches!!! However, there is still a little hole you have to worry about and stitch up at the end, or maybe I’m just not pulling short rows tight enough on the turn. The short row heel also makes the sock fold in half beautifully, like a store-bought sock and I find that really satisfying.
I chose to do a fairly long leg and a 2 x 2 rib for the cuff. I have to admit I didn’t quite follow the direction for where to start in a colour with self-striping yarn, which made it a little more difficult to truly match the stripes on my 2 socks, but I do love the symmetry that I achieved between them, and in a complete fluke, the top and bottom of my heel are also pretty symmetrical!
This is a great pattern to follow if you haven’t knit socks before, or if you’ve never knit a sock with contrast cuff, heel, and toe, because Nicole gives you instructions for when to change yarn and even when to break, or not break, your yarn. If you are doing contrast bits though there is a downside…way more ends to weave in unfortunately.
While the stripes are really satisfying I don’t think I’ll be a serial self-striping sock knitter. Sometimes you need the mindless stockinette, but I’ve done so much of it lately that I need to break it up with something requiring a little more attention and complexity. But I do already have my next self-striping sock set, so there will be more Sockventures to come!
