Design

These socks are knit as one tube of variegated yarn that is the same the whole length, with a stitch pattern that interacts with the yarn in places--making it look like the stripes were smeared while the paint was still wet. Then it is divided in half and heels and toes are added in a matching solid color.

Reasons

This pattern is designed for the specific situation of having 50g of a colorful variegated yarn. I want the pattern to be different than just what the yarn produces by itself, but I don’t want to waste too much of the yarn on that. Also, I want the pattern to be consistent everywhere, and bonus points for it being easy to divide the skein in half. Also the afterthought-heel will be done before the toes since I’m not confident that I can put it in the correct place.

Pattern

• Cast on 60 with maximally stretch cast-on (does this have a real name?) in solid
• 6 rounds matching 1x1 ribbing
• Switch to patterning yarn
• (k11 s k yo s k)x4 (fabric was distorted before I had the YOs)
• (k11, drop yo from previous round, yo k s k s)x4
• (k11, drop yo from previous round, yo s kk s)x4
• repeat last two rounds until patterned skein is used up
• switch to solid yarn; knit one round, dropping YOs
• 5 rounds 1x1 ribbing
• I did find a bind-off that is essentially equivalent to the maximally stretchy cast-on, but as I should have predicted it has loops shifted half a stitch over so has a different visual effect. Leaving it for these but I’d want more symmetrical socks or to not make the cuffs this way if I were to do this again.
• divide in half, putting on scrap yarn. Two rounds need to be removed due to the slip stitch pattern.
• add heels - Put 7 sts beyond pattern on needles, don’t remove cut yarns from last few stitches. Standard; end at 24 sts total
• add toes - I put the heel in the wrong place, forgetting that to make my adjust-with-toe thing really work I needed to err towards long toes. Ended at 40 sts total.