socks

Imker Socks

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Hello, I hope you’ve had a good week so far. I’ve been busy as a bee this week, and have finished another pair of socks from the wonderful 52 Weeks of Socks book – the Imker socks. As you can see, they are slightly too long for me, but they are for someone with feet two shoe sizes up so that’s fine.

Imker is the Dutch word for beekeeper and I think the design idea is brilliant, with honeycomb cables on feet and legs…

…and even a kind of tiny honeycomb stitch on the heel flaps.

I knit the backs of the legs in plain stocking stitch, because I’d read in other people’s Ravelry notes that with cables all round, the legs get too narrow to get your feet into the socks. The other modification I’ve made is using German short rows on the heels instead of the Wrap-&-Turn method (a great post about the how and why of that can be found here.)

The only thing I’m not very enthusiastic about is the very short heel flap. Having said that, the socks do fit very well around the heel and foot.

The yarn I used is Onion Nettle Sock, a blend of 70% wool and 30% nettle fibres, in shade 1032, a warm honey brown.

The stinging nettle fibre is added for durability as a sustainable alternative to nylon. The wool-and-nettle blend looks and feels like wool blends with other plant fibres in them, like cotton or linen. The nettle fibre takes the dye differently than the wool, which gives an ever so slightly marled effect.

While I was knitting these socks, I was thinking about bees and remembered a book I’ve loved reading – Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge.

It’s a children’s classic from 1964, about Nan, Robert, Timothy and Betsy, who come to live with their eccentric uncle somewhere in the English countryside. Uncle’s cook/housekeeper/gardener Ezra is also an imker, and bees play an important role in the story.

Ezra teaches the children “Bees understand every word you say. They be the most wonderful creatures God ever made. If men were to ‘ave one-quarter o’ the wisdom o’ the bees this wicked world would be a better place…”

Ezra’s philosophy is, “If you’re good to the bees the bees they’ll be good to you.” He also warns the children, “you must mind your manners with ‘em. They like a bit o’ courtesy.”

Heeding Ezra’s warning, I asked some of the bees in our garden very politely if they’d please sit still for a moment, so that I could take a picture of them. But either they speak a different language here or they just weren’t listening, because I haven’t been able to capture them. My husband was more succesful as a honey bee whisperer and took this photo:

Isn’t it gorgeous? The orange clumps on the bee’s legs are pollen. To be honest, I had to look that up and found out that some species of bees actually have baskets on their legs for collecting pollen. Amazing! There is so much about bees that I don’t know yet. What I do know is that I love some of their honey in my ginger-and-lemon tea.

I don’t know exactly how consuming honey relates to Ezra’s philosophy about being good to the bees, though. Sigh, life can get very complicated once you start thinking about things. Wishing you a great weekend, with hopefully time to enjoy some knitting and a nice cup of tea (with or without honey).

The History of Bees and Beekeeper Socks

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Hello! Both my knitting (at least some of it) and my reading have been bee-themed lately. To start with the reading, I’ve just finished The History of Bees by Norwegian author Maja Lunde. (Thank you for the tip A.!)

It is set in three different countries and three different periods: 19th century England, more or less present-day USA, and China in the not-too-distant future. It also has three different protagonists. The common denominator is that in all three of the settings bees play an important part. In the dystopic future China story line, bees have become extinct and orchards have to be pollinated by hand.

It is not just a book about bees, but also about parenting. From time to time, I found it painful to read how self-absorbed the parents were and how they failed to really see and hear their children. It’s a cleverly constructed book and an absorbing read with interesting characters. And although it is unsettling, it also offers glimmers of hope.

The old pear tree in our garden flowered profusely this spring.

I remember years when it was positively buzzing with bees. In recent years there were fewer bees, and this year it’s been eerily quiet.

It is worrying, to say the least. Will we need to pollinate the blossoms by hand from now on, like they do in China in The History of Bees?

There are various reasons for the worldwide decline in bees and other insects, and the use of pesticides is one of them. We live in a part of the country that wasn’t traditionally a flower-growing region. But now we suddenly see tulip fields popping up here and there.

A beautiful sight, absolutely, but also an upsetting sight to me.

Growing tulips involves large amounts of pesticides. And it’s even worse with peonies and lilies, which are also grown in more and more fields around here, too. Really, really worrying (also because of the link of pesticides with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS), but what can we do?

Actually there are all kinds of things we can do to save the bees, and even some things we can do to reduce pesticides on a personal level. But we don’t always need to do something. Sometimes NOT doing something is best – like not buying tulips, peonies and lilies anymore.

Now, onto a more light-hearted subject: knitting. The Imker sock on my needles is growing slowly. It is knit from the toe up and I’ve just finished the heel.

Imker is the Dutch word for beekeeper. A well-chosen name, as the foot and leg are covered in a honeycomb cable pattern. It is a time-consuming but interesting sock to knit.

Well, that’s all for today. I hope I haven’t put you off with my worries and being a wet blanket about tulip fields. Hope to see you here again next week. Bye for now!

Sock Knitting Basket

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Hello! Do you know Flemish singer-songwriter Raymond van het Groenewoud? He has a song called In mijn hoofd (Inside My Head). In it, he sings: ‘Inside my head everything is simple; Inside my head everything falls into place.’ And also: ‘Welcome, welcome inside my head (…) It’s great to dwell inside my head.’ It sounds incredibly zen.

Inside my head it is often like the current state of my sock knitting basket – overcrowded and tangled. From time to time, I dump everything out.

The contents of my sock knitting basket onto the dining table. The contents of my head onto paper (I now know that this process is actually called brain dumping). When everything is out in the open, a soothing inner voice says things like: ‘There, there. Have a cup of tea and you’ll see that it’s not as bad as it looks.’ After that it’s time to take a deep breath and sort things out.

Knitting tools go in a dedicated knitting tool basket, crochet things go in a crochet lace box, leftover sock yarn goes in with other sock yarn remnants.

Things I can do something about go in my Moleskine planner, ideas and question marks in various notebooks, and worries about things I can do nothing whatsoever about are sent back into the universe (the latter have a tendency to barge right back in at the moment, though).

My sock knitting basket yielded three hankies with crocheted lace around them and four pairs of socks. After darning in the ends and washing them, these are now ready to be used, given away or sent off. Among them these socks:

The yarn for these is Gründl Hot Socks Semila 4-ply. It’s one of those yarns that guarantee a matching pair of socks. It has a fluorescent green starter thread that tells you where to start for the first and for the second sock. In my experience, these yarns only work for shoe sizes 37-40 (UK 4-7, US 6-9). For smaller sizes the leg gets far too long and the toes are finished before you get to the special toe colours. And for larger sizes there just isn’t enough yarn. Another disadvantage is that with those starter threads a lot of yarn gets thrown away. Having said that, I think the effect can be very nice indeed.

Ah, that feels good. A tidy sock knitting basket with just one sock project and only the bare necessities in it.

And also a clearer head. For now.

If you like, you can watch and listen to Raymond van het Groenewoud singing In mijn hoofd while he is trying out a new guitar here. And find a description of brain dumping more or less the way I do it here. Thank you for visiting with me – it’s always lovely to have your company. xxx

How to Use a Sock Ruler?

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Hello! To indicate that I’m not a sock-ruler-expert, I’ve added a question mark to the title of today’s post – How to Use a Sock Ruler? They may have been around longer, but I only came across them recently and my curiosity was aroused. So I purchased one, worked out how to use it and am now reporting my findings to you. Please correct me if I’m wrong or am missing something.

Mine is from German yarn manufacturer Lana Grossa. It is in German, and uses only centimetres and European shoe sizes. You may want to look for a different brand if you live in a different part of the world. Here it is:

It can be used for shoe sizes 30-47. (There is a separate sock ruler for smaller children.) And these are the areas of interest the numbers refer to:

  1. Yarn weight
  2. Needle sizes
  3. Number of stitches to cast on
  4. Foot length from heel to toe
  5. Total foot length

I’ll try to describe everything in a logical order, starting with:

Yarn weight and needle sizes
4-F (1. in the photos above and below) stands for 4-fach in German, meaning 4-ply. This refers to the yarn weight this side of the sock ruler is to be used for – thinner sock yarns with around 400m/437yds to 100g.

The row of holes (2. in the photos above) is a needle gauge for the range of knitting needle sizes used for 4-ply yarns. The reverse side of my sock ruler is for thicker 6-F (6-fach/6-ply) yarns (shown below):

Casting on
Before starting on a sock we need to look at the area called Maschenanschlag (4-f).

This is a handy table showing how many stitches (Maschen) to cast on for socks for different shoe sizes using 4-ply yarn. I’m knitting size 38 socks and need to look at: Gr 36-39: 60M. (Gr = Größe/size; 36-39 is the range my size 38 falls in; 60M = 60 Maschen/stitches). So I need to cast on 60 stitches, and that’s exactly what I always do for these kind of socks.

Cuff and leg
The sock ruler can be used to measure the length of the cuff and leg instead of a tape measure. How long you want them to be is up to you.

Heel
Alas, the sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel – you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. I’m knitting a pair of socks with a traditional Dutch heel flap.

Foot
To determine when you need to start on the toe, you need to look at Fusslänge: Fersenmitte bis Spitzenbeginn (Foot length: from middle of heel to start of toe). Insert the sock ruler in the sock, with one end (the end without the hole) pushed against the centre of the heel flap. The sock ruler now indicates when it’s time to start on the toe.

I’m nearly there:

The sock ruler indicates that Gr/size 38/39 needs to be 20 centimetres long from the middle of the heel to the start of the toe. That’s exactly how I always knit it.

Toe
The area called Gesamte Fusslänge (total foot length) is meant to help us with the toe. Oh, I’m starting to worry now. I’ll need to knit a very long toe (5 centimetres), to get from start of toe (indicated on left of sock ruler) to total foot length (indicated on right of sock ruler).

I ignore this and knit my usual toe, because I know that always fits and I’ll see what happens with the sock ruler.

Finished, my sock is shorter than it should be according to the sock ruler. I stretch it a bit, and then a bit more, and… then it’s the correct size by the sock ruler.

Verdict
So, what’s the verdict? Do you need a sock ruler?

Pros:

  • This particular sock ruler is made from beautiful smooth beech wood and is simply a lovely thing to hold in your hands.
  • A yarn gauge for double pointed needles always comes in handy.
  • Measuring the foot length from heel to toe is a little easier with the sock ruler than with a tape measure.
  • The table with shoe sizes and number of stitches to cast on for them is a very useful kind of cheat sheet.
  • The sock ruler tells you accurately when to start on the toe.

Cons:

  • You can just as easily use a tape measure for measuring length of cuff and leg.
  • The sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel.
  • This sock ruler is only suitable for cuff-down socks and not for toe-up ones, as far as I can see.
  • Measuring the total sock length is very inaccurate with the sock ruler.

So…
In my humble opinion you can live very well without a sock ruler, but it’s nice to have one. I will use it again, especially for sock sizes that I don’t knit very often.

Knitting in rain, sunshine and rain again
When I started on these socks, it was raining a lot and I had to take photographs on the dining table indoors. Then it became hot and sunny, and I could use the outdoor table. And then it started pouring again, with rain pattering on the outdoor table and in the bird bath.

Fortunately for the blackbird the bird table has a roof. The perfect place to shelter during a downpour.

Well, I hope this has been helpful/interesting/enjoyable to read. Are you a sock knitter, too? Have you ever used a sock ruler? What did you think of it?

Candle Flames

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Hello and welcome! It’s a pity I can’t literally invite you all round for some mulled wine or tea, nibbles and a chat, but at least we can spend some time together here on my blog.

For me, writing a blog post is like writing Christmas cards – a great way to connect. About the card writing my husband said, ‘that’s quite a job, you’ve taken on.’ Not at all. To me it’s like spending some enjoyable moments with all my friends and relatives, holding them in my thoughts and wishing them well.

Besides many cards, I’ve also slipped a pair of socks in the mail. They were knit from the cuff down to the toe, with a slip stitch pattern on the heels.

The design is Candle Flame by Mona Schmidt and it’s another pair from 52 Weeks of Socks (here on Ravelry). They have small 2-stitch cables in the cuff. The pattern on the leg and foot is basically the same tiny cable, only alternating the purl stitches and the cables every four rows.

I was going to write up a tutorial about different ways to knit 2-stitch cables, to transcend the look-at-what-I’ve-made level by offering something useful, but didn’t get round to it. Together with many other things, I’m moving it to my could-do list for next year.

In the original design, most of the foot is plain stocking stitch. I didn’t like that very much and added a diamond in the same cable stitch pattern. Candle flames to keep a friend’s feet toasty – isn’t that a lovely idea?

Speaking of candle flames, another friend sent us a card with a quote I’d like to requote here:

‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.’

Being a therapist, she also gives us some pointers on how to do this, using words like gentleness, self-care, love, joy, sincere attention, connection, hope and humour. Lighting metaphorical candles isn’t always easy and I am grateful to my friend for her message.

I’m taking some time off now, to be with my loved ones, read, go for walks, and knit. Over the next couple of weeks, I’d like to finish the colourwork gifts that didn’t get done in time. They were going to be a surprise anyway and will still be a nice surprise in January, I hope.

I wish you a joyful and peaceful holiday season, with plenty of time for the things that make your candle flame burn brighter. Thank you so much for visiting me here and I hope to see you again in the New Year!

Lempisukat?

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Hello! I hope this finds you and your loved ones all well. First of all, sorry to the non-knitters among you. It’s very knitterly post today I’m afraid, about a pair of socks I’ve just finished – Lempi, another pair from that marvellous book 52 Weeks of Socks. Designed by Rachel Coopey, these are knit in 3 colours from the cuff down to the toe.

The photos in the book are very atmospheric, but don’t always show the details very well. These socks have a variation on k2, p2 ribbing on the cuff and another variation on it on the top of the foot.

I knit the Lempi socks on 2.0 mm (US 0) double-pointed needles and switched to 2.5 mm (US 1½) circulars for the colourwork section. At the toe of the first sock, I realized that there wouldn’t be enough of the main colour for the second sock – I’d already used more than half of it. And I was making the smallest size, too!

Unable to get another skein at short notice, I decided to switch the colours around for the second sock, ending up with an unmatched pair. After soaking I put them on my sock blockers.

Unlike with the pair of stocking stitch socks I blocked on them before, I am very happy with the result now. Blocking really makes a difference – can you see it?

It worked especially well for the colourwork section, which was rather uneven before blocking but evened out nicely.

The yarn I used (Lang Jawoll superwash) has a small spool of thinner yarn inside each skein for reinforcing heels and toes. With this extra thread and the slip-stitch pattern used, the fabric for the heels became very dense and stiff – it really feels indestructible.

Curious about the meaning of Lempi, I looked it up. Turns out it’s a Finnish word meaning love, or (in compounds) favourite. For instance, lempimusiikki means favourite music, lempiväri means favourite colour and lempisukat means favourite socks.

So, are these my new lempisukat? Not really. I would have preferred both socks to be the same, if I’m honest. Also, in my humble opinion the 3-colour design is not quite balanced. And what really bothers me about my pair is that there is not enough contrast in the colourwork of the second sock. My advice to anyone who’d like to knit a pair of these: Omit the 3rd colour and instead use two 100-gram skeins of yarn with plenty of contrast.

Lempi can be found here on Ravelry and more information about 52 Weeks of Socks here on the (Finnish) publisher’s website.

Oh, the Places Knitters Go!

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Hello! It’s good to be back here. Maybe you haven’t even noticed I’ve been away, but we’ve been on a late summer holiday to Germany. We spent the first half in the Mosel region, and the second half in the Eifel. Above a photo of the view on the river Mosel from our balcony, and below our first holiday home from the outside:

In my dreams, that is. In real life this is Reichsburg Cochem. And in real life we stayed in a far humbler (but lovely) abode. In real life, this was what I looked out on when I sat knitting outside our cottage.

I didn’t knit all that much during our holiday, though. Partly because we were out walking and visiting places most of the time, and partly because it was so hot that the yarn almost felted in my hands. A few rows on a scarf here and there, and half a sock was all I knit.

Halfway through the holiday, I celebrated my birthday. We had some of the famous and delicious German Kuchen, of course. (The Germans are so much better at baking cakes than we Dutch are.) And I also got to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I chose a visit to another castle and… a yarn shop (what else?). This is Schloss Bürresheim.

The castle is entered through a kind of tunnel that leads to a courtyard with an outdoor summer kitchen. It’s very special, like being in a film.

Actually it is in a film. In an edited form, it is the castle where Indiana Jones’ father is held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, let’s drive on to the yarn shop. It’s Die Kleine Wollfabrik in Kaisersesch. My guess is that tourists are a rarity in this town. It’s 30 ˚ C/86 ˚ F, with glaring sunlight and noise and dust from building activities in a colourless street. Oh, the places we knitters go! For a moment I wonder ‘what on earth am I doing here?’, and then step inside a world of colour.

There is yarn everywhere. In overflowing baskets…

… in cubbyholes, on shelves, on the floor…

… on top of storage units and in front of the windows. These skeins were dyed by the shop owner herself:

And there is also quite a bit of spinning fibre.

So, is this yarn shop worth a detour? If you’re looking for yarn for a sweater – frankly no. There is very little of that kind of yarn here. But if you’d like some yarn for socks or a shawl – absolutely. Be prepared for a kind of yarn jungle expedition, though. You’d be wise to have some kind of idea of what you’re looking for beforehand.

From all of the very colourful yarns, I chose several rather quiet ones for three pairs of socks to give away, and a variegated yarn for a pair for me. All of them yarns I haven’t knit with before – I’ll tell you more about them when I get round to knitting them up.

After all of the beautiful places we’ve been to, it’s good to be back home. In a sense, I’m a cow. Not the nicest thing to say of oneself perhaps, but what I mean is: I need time to chew things over. After ingesting lots of grass/impressions, both cows and I need some quiet time to digest everything. Sifting through my photographs and writing about my experiences helps me do that.

Thank you for reading. I hope to digest/write about a visit to another textiles-related place next week before getting back to my ordinary knitting chat. Hope to see you then!

Late Summer Knitting

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It’s the first day of September today and it won’t be long before the summer is over. The hedgerows are speckled red, orange and purple with elderberries, rosehips and blackberries.

It’s that in-between time, when on the whole it still feels like summer, but with dewy early-morning spiders’ webs and clumps of fungi letting us know that autumn is on its way.

It’ll soon be time to start knitting warm and cosy sweaters or perhaps even a blanket. But for now, I’m still knitting on my small summer projects. Another cardi for our grandson, this time with a diamond pattern, is well underway.

I’ve also started another pair of socks from the 52 Weeks of Socks book. This time it’s Lempi, designed by Rachel Coopey. My first attempt became far too wide, with a very loose and open fabric.

I never swatch for socks – do you? I just start and try them on, and if I’m not happy with what I’m getting I rip them out and start anew. That’s what I did with the first Lempi sock. I went down from the suggested 2.5 mm/US 1½ to 2.0 mm/US 0. Now the fabric and fit look right.

These socks have a knit-and-purl pattern on the feet, some colourwork on the legs, and long cuffs in p2, k2 alternating with narrow bands of k2, p2. A simple but very nice rib pattern. Just a few rows to go and I can start on the colourwork section.

The yarn I’m using is Lang Jawoll in three colours. It comes in 50 gram skeins instead of the usual 100 grams, which is handy for sock patterns using multiple colours. Each skein hides a small spool of thinner yarn inside for reinforcing heels and toes.

Both the Lempi socks and the little cardi need quite a bit of attention. The cardigan isn’t very difficult, but I’m making the pattern up as I go which makes it a little more complicated. So, in need of a mindless project alongside, I’ve also swatched for another Polka Dot Scarf. I gave the first one I knit away and may (or may not) keep this one myself. I’m using a different colour for the actual scarf – dark denim instead of grey.

With these three projects on my needles, I’ll have enough to do over the coming weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be composing a to-knit-list for when the days really start getting colder. Are you still knitting summery projects, too, or do you already have larger and warmer things on your lap?

It isn’t warm enough for our cherry tomatoes to ripen on the plants anymore, this late in the summer. So some of them are ripening on a glass plate in our window sill. They’re so pretty, and very tasty, too.

Hope to see you again next week. Byeeee! xxx

A Yarn Shop and Sock Blockers

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Hello! As I said at the end of last week’s post, we added a couple of kilometres to the flax trail to visit a yarn shop. It is called Selden Sá! and is situated in Eastrum, a village of under 200 inhabitants.

For Selden Sá! to stay in business, either the people in Eastrum must be hugely prolific knitters eating up miles of yarn or there must be something about this out-of-the-way shop that makes people travel to it from far and wide. Let’s take a look around to find out.

Focused on flax, I spotted several linen yarns (e.g. Borgo de Pazzi Lino in photo at top). Lovely cool and summery. I also saw and fondled an extremely soft wool-and-cotton blend that would be perfect for a sweater for our grandson (photo below, to left of mannequins, third row from the top).

I’m hopeless at choosing things on the spot and regrettably didn’t buy any.

From people in my knitting group I’d already heard that Selden Sá! stocks many Scandinavian yarns and I recognized familiar ‘faces’ from Istex, Rauma, BC Garn and Holst Garn. There’s also a lot of Filcolana, a Danish brand I’m not familiar with but would definitely love to try.

For me, there is something so uplifting about browsing around in a yarn shop. All those colours! All those possibilities!

Don’t you just love it when a shop has lots of samples for inspiration?

A basket filled with swatches may not excite most people, but I could easily spend an entire afternoon studying them.

I wasn’t only browsing around, though, but also looking for something. What I needed was yarn for a pair of manly socks with an intricate stitch pattern in a light neutral, like solid grey or beige or something. What I left the shop with was a skein of hand-dyed variegated sock yarn in pink and taupe. Uh-oh, how unsensible! But very pretty, don’t you think?

I also bought a pair of wooden sock blockers – something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time.

I had just finished a pair of socks from a self-striping yarn and put them to soak as soon as we arrived home. To find out how much difference sock blockers make, I decided to block one sock and just hang the other sock to dry on the drying rack.

The socks fit my foot (shoe size 38) and the sock blockers were size 38-40. What I expected was that the sock would need to be stretched around the blocker. What actually happened was that the sock blocker disappeared completely inside the sock, hook and all! Upon drying, the sock shrank back a little, but still sat loosely around the blocker.

A bad buy? Well, that’s what I certainly thought at first. But when the socks were dry and I compared them, I could see a slight difference between the blocked and the unblocked sock. I don’t know if you can see it in the photo below, but the blocked sock (right) looked slightly neater, with more even stitches than the unblocked sock (left).

I expect the difference to be more marked in socks with a lace or cable pattern. I also suspect I need a pair of sock blockers in a larger size. Yes, I really think I need to pay Selden Sá another visit, for larger sock blockers, that soft wool-and-cotton yarn for our grandson and perhaps a few other things…

Do any of you have experience with sock blockers? Do you think they really make a difference? And do the blockers need to be larger than the socks or will that stretch out the knitted fabric too much?

I’d be grateful for your advice, but even if you don’t have any, I’m grateful for your visit. Bye! xxx

Linea Socks

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Hello!

While I’ve been out and about quite a bit over the past few weeks and had to squeeze in some work, too, there was also plenty of time for knitting. One project that has recently slid off my needles is a pair of Linea Socks. It’s the second pair I’ve made from that beautiful book 52 Weeks of Socks.

This design, by Finnish designer Minna Sorvala, has diamonds on the top of feet and legs, flanked by columns of twisted stitches and small honeycomb cables.

I felt rather daunted at the start, but knitting four rows here, six rows there and just following the clear instructions and the chart the socks grew more quickly than I expected. While knitting, I took some photos of interesting details, hoping my pictures and notes will be of use to anyone else who’d like to make the same socks.

The Linea Socks are knit from the toe up and have a fairly blunt toe. Using a circular needle, I cast on with Judy’s magic cast-on. (There are many videos explaining this technique clearly, like this one.)

These are socks with a gusset, which imho makes for a much better fit than gusset-less socks. In the pattern, the increases for the gusset are made between the top and bottom needles. At first, I followed the pattern, but got holes.

This was not what I was looking for, so I ripped back a few rows and made the increases one stitch from the sides. Much better.

The heels of the socks are reinforced using a pattern of slip stitches. I hope you can see it in the photo below.

To bind off, I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. (For a long time I called it Jenny’s bind-off, but it really is Jeny with one n – a good video here). How wonderful to be immortalized like Judy or Jeny for inventing a clever knitting technique! Unstretched, this stretchy bind-off is zigzaggy along the ribbing at the top.

Stretched when worn, it looks neat and feels comfortable.

And here they are all finished – my Linea Socks.

There is one tiny error in chart B, for the back of the leg. The second stitch from the left should be knit through the back of the loop, instead of worked like an ordinary knit stitch. For the rest, the pattern is very clear and the Linea Socks were a joy to knit.

These socks remind me of a series of funny old cartoons – La Linea. It’s amazing how much can be done with one simple line. It’s just like knitting, really – one thread, endless possibilities.