I love Trekking XXL and have knitted many pairs of socks from it. This is the first time I’m not loving the colorway. It is beautiful in the ball, but it doesn’t look good knitted up. It has that camo look that I really, really, really hate. I’ve tried knitting with other stitch counts, other gauges, and other patterns. Everything I’ve tried looks pretty bad, so I decided to go with shadow rib.

Cast on 80 stitches, knit 20 rounds of 2 x 2 rib, work leg shadow rib pattern

Shadow Rib Pattern
round 1: knit
round 2: K2, P6 repeat from
round 3: knit
round 4: K2, P2 repeat from

Knitted in pattern until the leg measures 7 inches from the cast-on edge. Heel flap worked on 40 stitches (adjust to have instep begin and end with K1) in EOP with a 3-stitch garter edge. Heel flap-2.75 inches long. Turn heel (14 stitches on each side), pick up 25 stitches along each side of heel flap, decrease gusset stitches putting the decreases on sole. (19 stitches between the instep and heel stitches)

Toe decreases:

K8, K2tog repeat from
Knit 4 rounds plain

K7, K2tog repeat from
Knit 4 rounds plain

K6, K2tog repeat from
Knit 3 rounds plain

K5, K2tog repeat from
Knit 3 rounds plain

K4, K2tog repeat from
Knit 2 rounds plain

K3, K2tog repeat from
Knit 2 rounds plain

K2, K2tog repeat from
Knit 1 rounds plain

K1, K2tog repeat from

K2tog across

Use a tapestry needle to pull the tail through the live stitches twice, then move the tail to the inside of the sock and pull tight to close the end. Weave in the tail.