When I finished sewing up the toe on the black socks having decreased according to the ‘recipe’ (yesterday’s post) my eyes took a good look at the toes. Then I stared at my feet…….
Then I went and got a piece of paper and traced around my feet, the right one in its natural state, the left one with a sock on. Either way the shape did not match the shape of the sock. Hmmmm.
As an experiment, on the latest pair of woodsman socks, I did not decrease as for the toe but knit until the desired entire length of foot and then cast off at the foot width. It did occur to me to shape for the slope from big to little toe but then I would have a right and left sock: keep life simple is my ongoing mantra!
They feel good on the foot – sort of spacious. I am trying to think of unforeseen problems. Knit in the round socks are worn flat at the toe end; shaping for a roundish heel makes sense; at the toe end it makes sense to shape it flat.
Maybe other sock patterns allow for the rectangle at end of foot. Hmmmm, again. I have only ever made woodsman socks. Will have to do some snooping research when next I see someone casting off the toe of a sock…
Comments
2 responses to “Toes are round but foot is square; rethinking sock pattern”
All commercially made socks (that I have bought) are made square at the toe, so I guess that is a trick that has not been shared with the hand-knit-sock pattern makers. This does bring to mind a strange (to me anyway) phenomenon: every time I wear a hole in the toe of a sock (always over my big toe), it doesn’t matter which foot I put that sock on (I change feet to give the hole a rest), the hole always settles onto the new big toe. Why is that? Does this mean that there is always one spot on the toe of a sock that gets the lion’s share of wear, and shouldn’t there be a double thickness knit in there to take this into consideration? Is that spot in a different place for different people, depending on the length of their toes? One summer I am going to make this a project: take a worn sock and have all my friends try it on to see if the hole finds their big toes, or not. Maybe this will open the door for a worn sock exchange…
Anne – I think you are on to something! What fun. And I want to be kept posted about the experiment with the worn sock and friends’ opinions.