A debut.

You all know that I knit socks, right? Like, a lot of socks. More socks than anyone living in Florida ever needed to knit. Yeah, that was me.

Well all that crazy sock knitting has paid off in the form of my first published-in-print design: the Wasabi Peas Socks published in the Spring 2010 issue of Interweave Knits.

All images from InterweaveKnits.com

OF COURSE, my first printed design would be socks. Never mind the fact that when I first began to knit, I naively believed that I would never knit socks. WHY KNIT SOCKS?! You can buy them so easily. Sweaters I can understand because sometimes sweater yarn can be cheaper than a full sweater, but socks?

This from the girl who currently has about 3 pairs in various stages of what I like to call “progress.”

I have been trying in various forms to knit these socks for ages. I loved the stitch pattern, a simple trinity stitch, and when it came into my mind that it should be on a biasing diagonal, well, it just had to be done. Having the idea and making it work are often two very disparate things. Figuring out how to slant the stitches, how to work in the gussets, how to treat the top of the foot, these are things that probably would have kept me up at night if my cat hadn’t cornered that job market for herself.

Turns out, all I need is a deadline and I can Make Things Work. The stitches slant thanks to the paired M1 and k2tog/ssk stitches, and the gusset worked out to be absolutely no gusset whatsoever. I can’t give away all my secrets, though, so you’ll just have to peep the pattern yourself to see what I did there. I wanted the pattern slant to end on the side of the foot, not in a point on the top of the foot, but I do really like the way this turned out (and I think I know how I could have made it slant correctly, but eh).

As for modifying it to fit your own feet, I think it’s a fairly easy process. I’d suggest maintaining the original stitch count for the trinity stitch column and adding stitches to the stockinette portions (being mindful to adjust your heel flap and heel turn accordingly). Those of you with higher arches could knit the heel flap as directed and then purl one less stitch together in the side clusters of the non-gusset (…this probably only makes sense if you have the pattern in front of you). And since the stitch pattern ends towards the middle of a US size 8 foot, you can make it longer or shorter so easily.

I hope that some of you give the socks a whirl and let me know what you think!