For this past month, I had been working more on socks with
the encouragement from Red Heart Lovers June KAL & CAL. Their theme for June 2019 was socks, so I
went wild. I had not knitted socks for a
few years and it was really fun to pick it up again seeing it with a new eye,
and of course, I need replacement socks.
The worn out holes in the toe caps are too big to be ignored lol
Usually I love to make toe up ankle socks with afterthought
heel, but I could not be bother to add another yarn and weave in two more yarn
tails now, so I switched to using short rows to shape the heel.
It has been fun using various ways to do a
short row heel including wedging and hourglass.
Also tried out different short row techniques, German short rows, yarn
over short rows, shadow wraps to name a few.
I even went on to make cuff down one too.
If I have time, I will write down my thoughts
on different short row techniques and my preference in their applications.
Today, I want to keep a journal on my toe cap
construction.
 |
| Furballs Simply S(h)ock (right), Thousand Eye Furballs (middle), Furballs Having Hives (left) |
In general we can make the toe cap in three different
ways.
The first one is the most popular
one using increases or decreases, depending on whether you are making toe up or
cuff down, to shape the dome of the cap. It is popular because it is pretty
easy. By adjusting the rest rows in between the "action" rows,
different level of roundness could be achieved.
Special cast on, e.g., Judy's magic cast on, or bind off, e.g., Kitchener
grafting, techniques are needed to make it seamless. This way of making toe cap
is featured in my patterns:
Furballs Having Hives and
Furballs Simply S(h)ock.
In particular when I was knitting up
Furballs Having Hives,
I noticed a problem with gap / hole forming when making the first round of directional
increases. I used Judy's magic cast on to start and there is a inherited
problem of first pair of cast on stitches being looser than the rest. In normal knitting, like knitting straight up
to form a pouch, usually it is not a problem and if the gap ever showed up, using
a yarn needle and "spread" the excess yarn to the stitches along the cast on rows will work.
In case of making the toe cap with increases, this turn out
to be a big problem and "spreading" the extra yarn around with
increases seem to be more elusive. The problem is most obvious on the first
round of increases because the increases are placed near to loose stitches from
cast on. So after several tries, I
finally find a way to overcome it. It
might not be easier than the "spreading" technique, but with
practice, it should come easy. The most
difficult part is to identify where to pick up the strand of yarn to make the
increase (assuming we are doing make one and not others).
On the left in the photo above, it is constructed normally with make one right
and make one left every round starting with seven stitches and up to seventeen
stitches. The yarn needle point to the
gap in the first round of increases (second round overall in the pattern). On the right is my solution to the
problem. It follows the concept of
mending gaps during knitting by picking up the a strand of yarn from the row
below (think about wrap and turn in short rows, same principle). In this case, when we execute the make one
and picking up the strand of yarn that runs between the two stitches, we do not
pick up the strand from the current round, instead we pick up the strand from
the row below from the wrong side. Lift the
strand and put on left (holding) needle.
The strand should be behind or to the back of the strand of yarn in between
the stitches in the current round. Execute
the make one as normal. Do that for all the increases in the round. I only need to do it in the first increase round, all
other rounds will be normal make one execution.
The second way is using crown or star knitting. This is basically knitting the cap like the
crown of a hat. Still using increases or
decreases, they are spaced evenly across a round. This way of knitting also requires some types
of circular cast on, e.g., magic ring cast on, or bind off. Again the arrangement of the rest rows are
used in making the steepness of the dome.
It is featured in
Thousand Eye Furballs (below)
.
The third way is using short rows. One can start with provisional cast on for
toe up sock, or like what I used in
Furballs' Shorties (below), knitted the short
rows in a different manner and made it both suitable for toe up or cuff down
sock without the fear of gaps at point of joining. The shape of the dome depends on how "tight" the wrap and
turn's are packed together.
So I hope this will help you making beautiful sock :D At least you can have a good start in toe up sock.
Happy knitting :)
