Knitting Tips: Sizing Socks for Adults and Children

These charts can be used to determine the length of knitted/crocheted socks for particular sizes. You might want to increase the foot length by 1/2 inch or so to accommodate shrinking, growth, or snugness.

Men’s Sizes Shoe size / Foot length			Women’s Sizes Shoe Size / Foot length
US 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 10.5 11 11.5 12 13 14 15 16	Inches 9.25″ 9.5″ 9.7″ 9.75″ 9.9″ 10.1″ 10.25″ 10.4″ 10.6″ 10.75″ 10.9″ 11.” 11.25″ 11.6″ 11/9″ 12.2″ 12.5″		US 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 10.5 11 11.5 12	Inches 8.2″ 8.4″ 8.5″ 8.75″ 8.8″ 9.0″ 9.25″ 9.4″ 9.5″ 9.7″ 9.8″ 10″ 10.2″ 10.3″ 10.5″ 10.7″ 10.9″

Kid’s Sizes Shoe size ——————— Foot length
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5			3.25″ 3.5″ 3.6″ 3.75″ 4″ 4.1″ 4.25″ 4.5″ 4.6″ 4.75″		Approximate Age Infant (0 – 12 months)
5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 10.5 11 11.5 12			5″ 5.1″ 5.25″ 5.5″ 5.6″ 5.75″ 6″ 6.1″ 6.25″ 6.5″ 6.6″ 6.75″ 7″ 7.1″		Children (1 – 5 years)
12.5 13 13.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7			7.25″ 7.5″ 7.6″ 7.75″ 8″ 8.1″ 8.25″ 8.5″ 8.6″ 8.75″ 9″ 9.1″ 9.25″ 9.5″ 9.6″ 9.75″		Youth (6 – 10 years)

My Favorite Felted Mittens Pattern

photo: LGP

This past winter, I knitted, felted and sold about 20 pairs of felted mittens at pre-holiday craft fairs. I don’t mind making socks on circular needles, but not mittens – guess the hole for the thumb bothers me, I dunno. Anyway, I use the 2-needle pattern below, but I make the mittens much larger than if they weren’t about to be felted. That means, for a child, I make a small adult size. For men, a medium woman’s size. You have to use your judgement and know your yarn. For felting, I’ve found that Paton’s 100% wool worsted weight gives me predictable results. It is readily available, inexpensive, knits up beautifully, and comes in many lovely solids and blends. Yarns made specifically for felting shrink too much for this application.

Traditional two needle mittens work up quickly, and suit everyone from child to adult. Use up your yarn stash and knit a pair of mittens in a different color for everyone in the family.
Sizes: small child, medium child, large child, adult

# Materials: #5 and #7 needles
# 200 yards of worsted weight yarn
# 1 stitch holder
# 2 stitch markers
# tapestry needle

Gauge: 5 sts = 1″ on #7 needles

Cuff: With smaller needles, loosely cast on 24(28-32-36)sts. Work *K1, P1,* ribbing until piece measures 2 1/2 (3 1/2, 4, 4 1/2)”. Change to larger needle.

Hand: Row 1 (right side): K2, inc in next st, K to last 3 sts inc in next st, K1. Row 2 Purl. Continue working in SS until piece measures 1″ (1 1/4, 1 1/2, 2″) from end of ribbing, ending with a P row. For the last 3 sizes only Work 2 more rows. (SS)

Thumb Gusset: Row 1: K12 (12-14-16-18), place marker on needle; inc in each of next 2 sts, place marker on needle: K12 (14-16-18) sts. Row 2: and all even rows Purl. Row 3: K to marker, sl marker, inc in next st; K to st before next marker, inc in next st, sl marker, K to end. Repeat Rows2 and 3 until there are 8 (10-12-14) sts between the markers; end by working Row 2.

Divide for Thumb: K12 (14-16-18), drop marker; K8 (10-12-14)sts for thumb, and then place thumb sts on holder; K 12 (14-16-18) Work even in SS until work measures 4″ (5 1/2 -6-7″) from start of Hand, ending by working a purl row.

Top Shaping: Row 1: *K2, K2tog; rep from* across. Row 2: Purl. Row 3: *K1, K2tog, rep from * Row 4: Purl. Row 5: K2tog across; break yarn, leaving 18″ end. Thread yarn into tapestry

needle, run needle through remaining sts. Slip sts off needle, pull yarn up tightly and fasten securely. leave yarn for sewing.

Thumb: Sl sts from holder to needle, purl one row. Work even in SS until thumb measures 1 1/4 ( 1 3/4-2-2 1/4″) ending with a purl row. Next Row: K2 tog, rep across row cut yarn leaving 12″ end finished the same as above. Fold mitten and sew seams.

Your mittens will be comically large and floppy. That’s OK, that’s what you want. Follow your best felting instructions until they shrink to size. I’ve been known to throw wet mittens in the dryer, medium setting, to get to where I want them.

Good luck, happy knitting , let me know how you do!

(updated 10/1/09)

Knitting Tips: Enough Yarn for One More Row?

Whenever I’m reaching the end of a skein, I always wonder if there’s enough yarn remaining to complete another row. Here’s a rule of thumb for that situation, from Creative Knitting:

Spread out your work, so you get the full width of the piece. With your remaining yarn, loosely extend it from one side to the other and back again. If you have enough to spread your yarn three times across the knitting, you should be fine as long as you don’t have bobbles, cables or other yarn-gobbling features. If you are binding off, you’ll need at least four lengths as this procedure takes that much more to do it properly.

Knitting Tips: Bobbins

I recently came across a suggestion that makes a lot of sense. When doing color knitting, managing as few as 2 different skeins of yarn gets to be a real pain. Bobbins help a lot, and the easiest bobbin tip I’ve found is free. Just save some of those little plastic closure thingies that come on bread bags. These little clips also work as markers when doing pattern work. Why didn’t I think of that?

Knitting Tips: Toe of the Sock

I like to finish my socks with the 3-needle bind-off, but always had difficulty turning the sock inside out while still on the needles. Then I learned this nifty tip: Instead of trying to shove the toe and needles into the body of the sock, pull the cuff end through the toe hole and voila! It works! And saves a lot of struggling. I use the magic loop method but this should also help when using double-points.

Knitting Tips: Fix a Too-Long Sleeve without Frogging

There are few things more aggravating than finishing a sweater and discovering the sleeves are an inch, or 2, or 3, too long. All that knitting, all that seaming. Though still not fun, I recently figured out how to shorten the sleeves without taking everything apart.

Snip a stitch or two at the cuff. Good project for when you’re watching TV. Unravel back to the length you need. Then, using some of that raveled yarn, take a crochet hook of the appropriate size and crochet a new border around the sleeve bottom. I use single crochet, but you can do picots or whatever you please. No, the cuff isn’t ribbed, but it’s still pretty and now you can wear a sweater that fits properly. Ta daaa!

Knitting Tips: Homemade “Green ” Sock Blockers

Need a little frame to air dry or photograph your hand knit socks? The ones I’ve seen in knitting stores cost $18 or more. It’s easy to make your own, out of something we all have around the house, a simple wire coat hanger. The kind that’s plastic or rubber coated works best as they shouldn’t rust. Keeping the hanger handle to the top, form the hanger body into a diamond shape. Push the right side of the diamond inward to form the instep at the ankle. Round out the toe section. You can make this handy little tools to fit most adult and larger child sock sizes, and you can make adjustments as needed. And you can hang the socks up to dry. Recycle and help save the planet as well as $$$$. Pretty nifty! Aren’t knitters smart?

Knitting Tips: Mattress Stitch tutorial video

Looking for a great way to seam that knitting together? Berroco has posted a great video on how to make invisible seams, and it couldn’t be easier. I’ve got myself a new technique!

more about “Berroco® Multimedia | Videos“, posted with vodpod

Knitting Tips: No-sew Circular Needle Holder

I knit almost everything on circulars, but like most knitters, find them a pain in the *** to store. So, I think this little thingy is ingenious! Requires 13 spools with 1/4 inch holes, floral wire, markers, scrap yarn or fabric, and glue. And only 15 or 20 minutes to assemble. From Jen at pieknits DOT com.

instructions

Knitting Tips: Casting on Rule of Thumb

Cast on, get it? (OK, sorry.)

Nothing is more aggravating than casting on using the long tail method and running out of yarn before you have the requisite number of stitches. As a general rule of thumb, you use 3 times the width of your project. For example, if your piece will measure 21″, use a 63″ tail of yarn to cast on. Better to have too much than too little. If your project will require seaming, consider adding an additional 12″ or so to use for that.