April 6, 2008

Socklettchen Adaptation

I was digging through some dark corners of my stash storage system (system, ha...) and discovered the sample sock my Mama knit for me and the description she wrote out so I would know what to do and finally conquer my nemesis sock. For years I was struggling with the concept, I had conquered lace and twists (not all that good, but who is perfect then?) and the sock just was something I so badly wanted to knit, but just could not get my head around. I also found the first sock I ever knit, and yes I only knit one first sock. No second one to make the first pair...
It is nice to see how people influence you. I never asked her for this, I was living in the USA at the time and Germany was a long way off. And just one day this package arrived. Some candy, a German book, this sock. Awesome.

Since I put out "Socklettchen" I got really nice comments. Thanks to everyone, I find that very encouraging and it does make me feel good. I do tell people how much and why I like their designs, after all we all do this out of a passion for knitting, crochet, weaving, spinning....

One person said she would have loved to see the pattern in different sizes. She specifically was looking to make this for a little girl, so I did actually write an adaptation. Just some notes.
I did think about this "in different sizes" thing, and decided that for now I'll go case by case. Patterns generally can be adapted, and it is hard to satisfy everyone as there is a lot of different feet or body shapes or heads out there. We will see.

Here is the adaptation, written to fit a girl of about 7 years of age.

Work everything as in the Pattern but make following changes:
-cast on 16 st, work increases as described until you have 40 st.

-then you would knit only 5 pattern repeats, not 10.

-the gusset you work the same way, except you increase until you have 20 st for the front of the foot and 34 st for the bottom of the foot.

work heel as follows:
-k12 st, k10 st, turn work.

1.row: slip 1st st, then purl 8 st, k1, turn work.

2. row: slip 1st st, k9 st, turn work.
repeat row 1-2 until you have knitted 10 rows, you'll end on a purl row. turn work.
-sl 1 st, knit to end of row and then pick up 5 st on the side of the heel flap. complete the row in pattern, and pick up 5 st on the other side of the heel flap. (You have now 20 st on your heel flap + 12 st on each side of the heel flap)
-setup row: k to end of heel flap, p2tog (one from the heel flap and one of the extra stitches), turn work.
1. row: p19, k2tog (one from the heel flap and one of the extra stitches), turn work.

2. row: k19, p2tog (one from the heel flap and one of the extra stitches), turn work.
-continue until all st on each side of the heel flap are knitted. you should end with a purl row.turn work so the front is facing you.
-work 2 rows in pattern, then start to work pattern around the whole leg. This should fit 8 times.
repeat rows 1-6 two times.repeat rows 1-3 one time.

Then you just continue knitting like the instructions say, except that you have a bit less on your needles.

I hope this works out, I really have no clue about children's sizes (yet). But this is about half the sock, and in the same way the pattern was adapted now it is possible to vary the sizes by adding or removing pattern repeats etc. So I hope this works out.

Please do not use this pattern for commercial purposes. You may print a copy for your personal use. © Knittiana!

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