Knitting = Thinking. Sometimes

[e_moon60]

When I started knitting socks, using worsted-weight yarn, I used size 5 US needles.  I knew my mother had used size 4s to make the socks she made me, but I found it easier to see what I was doing with size 5s.   I created the pattern for those socks on my feet (trying the socks on repeatedly, and correcting from pair to pair until, with #4, I had

Comments

[e_moon60]

Why? It's only socks. My mother was the genius. She designed sweaters...sometimes using a pattern that was intended to be knitted flat and turned it into a seamless garment, sometimes designing from scratch. I never got to see that part of it, but I benefitted from it with lovely sweaters. No seams. I do remember watching her (silently and from a slight distance) as she did the join on two, one simpler and one very complex. Two arm tubes (shaped) knitted into the body tube, often with a decorative cable running up the join if the sleeves were raglan.

Switch the needle size for socks is basically doing what I did before--knit a little, try on my foot, knit a little more, try on my foot, etc.

[jjmcgaffey]

Yeah..."only" socks. I keep reading your knitting posts, especially ones like this where you talk out your methods, and thinking I really should just start a pair

[e_moon60]

I knit a pair of wool socks for a friend who otherwise can't wear wool--skin sensitivity--and she had no problem with wool in socks. But go on and knit the acrylic socks, and see if you can get the fit you want first, then (if you want) try wool. It's possible that Superwash wool (which has been treated to permanently flatten the scales along the fibers) would bother your skin less (but beware--Cascade Yarns, a previously reliable yarn manufacturer, has recently changed where is yarn is made and according to reports on Ravelry its popular 220 Superwash is now not reliably machine washable.)