Socks!

Socks!

 OK, to me this seems like completely ridiculous sewing, but I have made socks and it heartily amuses me.  They are green, because I had some hanging around, and because what's the point of sewing if you can't make something that you'll never find in the shops. You may also notice that they don't match - the reason for this shall be revealed.


I had originally planned to exempt socks from my "no buying new" regime because I thought the only way to make them was to knit them and while I don't mind knitting I have no particular desire to spend that much of my life just making sock after sock after sock.  But then Craftsy had a sewing blog post on the best sock sewing patterns and I had to try it.

After looking at the pictures the basic structure seemed easy enough that I thought I might as well make my own pattern rather than buying one.  Most of the patterns and tutorials are for basic tube socks which I find fall down all the time so I added some shaping to my pattern, but kept one of the tips to help keep them up (added elastic round the top - jersey material is stretchy, but not that stretchy).

Some looking at, and drawing round, my best fitting pair of socks later and I get this:

This pattern looks weird....

The wibbly bit is the bottom with a fold over at the toe so I don't have a seam running right along my toes.  The rectangle is the top.

And the seaming is why my socks don't match.  Commercial socks are knitted much the same way that homemade socks can be knitted only on machines and in much much thinner, stretchier yarns.  Sewing socks means seams, which means potential for them to rub or at the very least be annoying.  So I made one sock with the seams on the inside and one with seams on the outside - otherwise they're the same so it should give me a good idea of which method is more comfortable.  Seams on the outside may not look quite as nice (even in green), but if they're more comfortable I'll definitely be making my socks that way.

After a day of wearing them it turns out they're actually really nicely comfortable.  The seams at the toe end curve just a fraction too far over so that I had a bit I kept fiddling with with my big toe, but there was no real noticeable difference between seams on the inside or the outside.  The fabric was super comfy, but unfortunately I didn't use the best needle for it so the seams are pulling a little bit and this first pair probably won't last long, but all in all I'm well pleased with my first socks.