Sooo, I know that I never finished the story of the Gentleman’s Winter Sock that I knit for my dad. You remember- this sock:
It was too big for my boyfriend (who had larger feet than my father) and I was debating what to do: Opt for denial and have a suprise, or opt for educated denial, blindfold my dad and have him try it on.
I blindfolded him. And it was huge. But even worse, he rejected them outright – didn’t even want them fixed. The problem? I picked washable wool.
Apparently, my dad had been reading my blog and thought the fact that my Redwood Forest Socks were felting to my feet was “so cool.” – and he wanted felting socks too!
But that would mean starting from scratch again. And he has big man feet! What’s a girl to do?
I used a single sock which had been in the que for a bit.
You see, I’d been planning to give this pair to my boyfriend. But everytime I worked on them, the curse would come calling. Everytime I touched the socks, we were doomed to have a giant fight and either break up (temporarily) or almost break up! They’d been sitting at the bottom of my stash pile for months because my boyfriend and I had decided that it was best that I not work on the socks any longer.
Zoom to recently. I shot the idea by my boyfriend and the sock has been “recycled” into some socks for my pops.
How they fit the criterion:
- They’re pure wool and sure to felt. But since they aren’t merino, they’ll hold up well.
- It’s a manly color. Grr. Brown.
- It was on size 3 needles=fast to compensate for giant foot-ness
- While the socks did fit my boyfriend, they were only a bit too big for me – this suggests that they will fit my dad just fine. If not, these will be far more easy to rip out than the GWS.
The DEETS- (That’s “cool” language for details!)
Pattern: My own, based on Knitty’s Thuja. Knit on 64 sts, decreasing down to 56 after the calf shaping.
Yarn: Araucania Nature Wool (2 skeins) in a brown color
Needles: Cuff, US 2 Clover DPNS. Everything else, US 3 Brittany Birch
Size: I think it fits my dad who calls himself between a size 10 and 10.5. 10.25 “if there is such a thing” he says. My opinion says that I could have skipped the calf shaping and started with 56 stitches outright (if I’d done my magic cast on trick, explained below). Notes: I knit the first one by starting the pattern stitch immediatly and knit the sock down to the toe. I didn’t know how long the skein would go and I wanted to be able to make it taller if needed/able. After the toe, I unpicked the provisional cast on and knit the cuff, deciding it was long enough. The second sock, I knit plain, ‘ol, plain ‘ol. I knit the cuff, then the leg, etc, etc woot! Two finished socks. However, of especial notability was that for the second sock, I cast on lots of extra stitches (on purpose, silly!) and knit the first for *k2, k2tog* across and it works really, really well – I can pull on the top as hard as I can and not feel the cast on (ie: it wont’ be restricting).
My dad loves them. But now, he wants more of them. Maybe in two years.
All Buttoned Up 