Podcast Episode 235: A Meditation on Sock Knitting

In honor of the Sock Yarn Sale that is currently going on, Kelley focuses on the humble sock for this week’s episode – a project that most knitter’s are hardly ever seen without in their current work-in-progress line up. Although it may seem simple, the beauty of a knitted sock lies within its practicality (both to make and to wear) as well as in its ability to be a blank canvas. Kelley walks you through all of the steps of working a top-down sock, along with a plethora of handy tips and tricks along the way. As Kelley pauses to reflect on the clever construction of socks, both new and experienced knitters are sure to be inspired to cast on a pair of socks right away.

Finally, Kelley catches you up with what she has on her needles at the moment. This week, the goal is all about simplicity and portability as Kelley reports from a Spanish language immersion retreat in La Paz, Mexico!

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7 comments

  1. Zoidy / March 15, 2014

    Kelly! That was great! By coincidence I was just at the point of creating the heel flap on a sock when I heard your sock construction meditation. I stopped what I was doing, re-cued the episode and knitted it as you walked me through each part ( pausing your narrative as I needed to catch up.) I knitted the best, tidiest heel I’ve ever done in 49 years of knitting! And I understood it all without having to read any instructions. Now I’ve knitted a second sock without ever looking at a pattern and it looks great, matches the first and it fits! Thank you. You made it all click for me.

  2. Karen / March 6, 2014

    Wonderful verbal tutorial on the construction and knitting of a top-down sock. I have made two pair of socks already and so I could truly appreciate Kelley’s guidance on when to just “trust her” and follow directions. So true! Her tip on using the ring finger to guide the length of the heel flap, and how long to make the sock cuff to avoid showing skin will be so helpful to me, and easy to remember. I also appreciated her thoughts on different heel constructions. All of the advice was very pragmatic and I loved that Kelley explained why she chooses to do something a certain way so that I can decide if that rationale applies to me, also. Kudos, Kelley! Well done!

    Now, Knitpicks staff, who is your editor? Please set a great example for everyone and fix the consistent grammar error using “it’s” instead of “its” that I see throughout so many of the postings. There are two occurrences in the post above. Just find them and insert “it is” into the sentence wherever you see “it’s.” If that doesn’t fit, please change the spelling to “its” without the apostrophe. Help educate other knitters who read your posts to use correct grammar. You will appear to be more professional.

    Thank you for the wonderful blog!

  3. Pat / March 4, 2014

    An excellent meditation. Thank you

  4. Jenny / March 3, 2014

    Hi Sharon! Were you looking for Kelley’s Sock Class? All of the videos are available in our tutorials section here: http://tutorials.knitpicks.com/wptutorials/category/video-classes/kelleys-sock-class/page/2/

    Hope this helps, it is a wonderful visual aide to accompany Kelley’s talk on sock construction for this podcast episode.

  5. Sharon Light / March 1, 2014

    what happen to the sock tutorial class? The link says it is not available on line

  6. Sharon Light / March 1, 2014

    the meditation on knitting socks was fabulous — would have liked even better as a video — if there is one, please let me know where to either watch it or purchase it.

    Sharon Light

    • Lin / March 6, 2014

      You can YouTube “Kelly’s Sock Class” and she walks through knitting a sock beautifully. I have knitted two pairs. The first watching her tutorial, the second with no problem as a result of her awesome video that is very similar to this meditation.