I still have supplies of homespun wool from the days when my mother kept sheep in the countryside and we used to take the wool to be exchanged for yarn. We dyed it ourselves, using all sorts of methods, including making it multicoloured simply by tying sections of the yarn. What remains now are mostly little oddments, not enough for anything large but perfect for socks. And socks disappear like hot cakes when there are three sons in the family and grandchildren as well.
Men’s socks for size 44 feet, double-stranded homespun wool dyed in several colours, 3 mm needles
I cast 14 stitches onto each needle and knitted ribbing for exactly as long as I could be bothered, which was not very long. After the ribbing I knitted 14 rows in stocking stitch, then started the heel. I knitted 16 rows across two needles and then began shaping the bottom of the heel. I divided the 28 stitches into three sections: 12 for the centre and 16 between the two sides. I knitted 7 stitches, then decreased two knitwise with a slip-over, knitted 10, then knitted two together. I turned the work, slipped the first and last stitches without knitting them, made the slip-over decrease on the knit row, knitted 10, knitted two together, and on the return row again slipped the previously decreased stitch. Once the side stitches were used up, I picked up 18 stitches, giving 24 stitches on each of the two needles. I decreased every other row. I do not decrease the very first or last stitch; I leave one stitch at the beginning and end of the row. It may be wrong or completely unnecessary, but I like doing it that way.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx – the dark crossed stitches are the decreases: a slip-over decrease on the first needle and an ordinary knit-two-together at the end of the second needle.
Once there were 16 stitches on the needles again, I continued in stocking stitch until I reached the end of the little toe, then started a rapid toe decrease, making a slip-over decrease at the beginning of every needle. I keep decreasing until one stitch remains on each needle, then knit the stitches from two needles together and finally the last two. That is how my mother did it, and I have never adopted the instruction that says to pull the yarn through when two stitches remain on each needle. I simply don’t like doing it that way. Once the yarn end is pulled through the toe to the wrong side, the little point left by my method disappears too.
Because the yarn had been sitting around for years, I washed the socks. Incidentally, I use washing-up liquid 🙂 Then I lay them flat to dry.
