In the FOlio, I reflect on a finished knitting object and what the process of knitting it taught me.

Pattern : Custom, but uses the toe of the Show-off Stranded Socks by Anne Campbell (Ravelry link),the New Depths Heel by Becky Sorensen (Payhip link) and was inspired by Double Helix Socks by Melanie Bielawski (Ravelry link)
Designer: Me, kind of?
Yarn Used : Mordor Fun Run by Must Stash Yarns
Knit from : February - June 2024

Lesson: Custom fit socks are easier than you think as long as you have a little experience.

When I got really into handknit socks a few years ago, I repeatedly asked my husband if he wanted me to knit him a pair.  For quite a while he did not think he would wear them enough, but then we bought our Chicago house and he started spending quite a bit of time in our finished basement which runs a good 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house, which is great in the summer but a bit uncomfortable in the winter.  So this past winter he agreed perhaps it was time I made him a pair.

“I like the rainbow striped ones you have,” he said, “could I have a pair like that, but with black heels and toes? And also I don’t want them to be that long.”

An exact replica wasn’t in the cards – the socks to which he was referring had been knit from the Woolens and Nosh 2022 advent skein, so I couldn’t just order the yarn again. Additionally I’d knit that pair toe up in order to make sure I got all 24 of the colors in each sock, which is not my favorite construction. So I decided to just wing it and custom fit a sock pattern for him.

Once you understand basic sock construction, socks are one of the easier types of garments to customize.  You need a heel construction, a toe construction, and to decide if you prefer toe up or cuff down, but if you have those things, the math for setup is fairly minimal.

The Math

To figure out a custom fit sock, you will need the following measurements from your intended recipient:

1. How far up their calf they want their sock to fit (measure with the person’s foot standing on the ground, from where their heel meets the ground to where they want their sock cuff to end).

2. The length of their foot.  If you have a sock ruler, you can just have them stand on the sock ruler, line up a ruler even with the back of their heel and measure to the tip of their longest toe.

   (This is not a paid endorsement but if you knit a lot of socks, and especially if you knit socks for other people, I highly recommend getting a sock ruler – it’s so much easier than doing constant fittings or trying to measure with a standard ruler.

3. The circumference of their leg/foot. For most people it works fine to measure around their leg about where they indicated they wanted their sock cuff to sit and that measurement will work for the circumference of their foot as well. However if the person you are knitting socks for has unusually narrow feet or very muscular calves or you just suspect the difference between the circumference of their foot and their leg is significant (we’re talking ½” to an inch or more) you might want to take both measurements and then do the gauge calculation below on both those measurements.

Next you need a couple of measurements of your own knitting.  Ideally you’ll have a sock you’ve knit previously to use for this – it doesn’t have to be the same size but it should be knit in the same weight yarn and with the same size needle as your custom sock (for obvious reasons I used my advent skein socks since we were trying to draw from that design).

Now you need a gauge measurement, so you can figure out the number of stitches of one round of your sock. I took my sample sock and measured how many stitches per inch in that sock. (If you don’t have a sample sock, knit a gauge swatch with your yarn.) Then I took my circumference measurement (number 3 above) and plugged both numbers into the following formula:

[Gauge measurement (stitches per inch)] * [Circumference (inches)]= Number of stitches in my sock.

As it happened my numbers came out around 75 stitches.  I decided to round down to 72 stitches, a nice even number that’s commonly used in larger sock sizes (you do want the finished sock to have to stretch a bit or it will slide off when it is worn). But I did also have my husband try the cuff on after I knit the first one to make sure it wasn’t too tight.

The trickiest remaining thing to figure out was where to start the heel on the first sock. For the New Depths Heel, you do start the gusset a bit higher than some heel constructions. Since I knit this heel in almost every sock I make, I took my sample sock again and measured from the turn in the heel to the first gusset decrease row.  That told me that with the same gauge that heel was 3.5 inches in length, so if my husband wanted the cuff of the sock to be no more than 7 inches up his leg (he likes a shorter sock), I should only knit 3.5 inches from cast on down the leg before starting the gusset.  I wouldn’t recommend using a heel you’ve never knit before in a custom sock, so hopefully you have some sock on hand with the heel you want to use. (You can also go full tech editor and figure out the height of the heel by counting the number of rows in the heel and multiplying it by your row gauge.)

Design Elements

My husband expressly said that he liked the cables on my advent skein socks. In the Double Helix pattern, those are 2x2 cables. However, I felt that on my husband’s wider foot the cable should be 3x3 to be of similar proportions. Additionally his sock was 72 stitches around and mine was 64, so they needed to be placed slightly further apart. I ended up noting that on the original sock, if you divided the sock into a front and back half (32 stitches each), they sat 2 stitches in from the front “edges” so I put his cables (on a 36 stitch half) right at the edge since they were each 2 stitches wider (or 4 total stitches wider which took up the extra 4 stitches in difference).

If you choose to add a color work design or textured motif that runs all the way around the sock, you’ll want to double check that the number of stitches in the repeat divides evenly into the total number of stitches in each round or you might have to add or subtract stitches (for example, a 3,4, 6, or 8 stitch repeat would evenly go into a 72 stitch sock — a 5 or 10 stitch repeat would not).

If it’s your first custom sock you might want to keep the design elements more simple (i.e. just a cable or two or a central motif that doesn’t go all the way around).

The Knitting

I have knit enough socks at this point that I know I am most comfortable with cuff-down construction, and my favorite heel is Becky Sorensen’s New Depths Heel (linked above).  When I knit for myself I generally do a standard wedge toe (although here’s a great article from Interweave on customizing wedge toes) but my husband has what I affectionately call “monkey toes” (they are not naturally straight) and puts a lot of strain on the toes of his socks.  So I decided to use a round-toe construction I first encountered in the Stranded Show-off Socks (linked above), in hopes that this would provide a little more space for his toes and put less strain on the yarn.

From there I just followed the measurements I had taken.  

I also did additional fit tests after I was done with the heel (to make sure he was happy with the fit and that it actually went over his ankle) and then again when I got close to the toe. It did turn out that I had mismeasured or wrote down the wrong length for his foot so I had to rip back a few rows before the toe to make it fit right.

Because I was knitting with one of Must Stash Yarn’s Must Match Pairs, once I had the first sock knit I didn’t even have to measure again – I just knew that the gusset started after the first gray stripe, and the toe started after the red stripe on the foot.

And then, success! These fit him really well, and he’s very happy with them – even though I didn’t finish them until it was full summer weather here.

If you’ve knit a few pairs of socks from patterns, I really encourage you to try your hand at custom socks – once you understand sock construction and the math behind it, they really are one of the easier custom items you can make.

 Have you knit custom socks before?  After reading this are you thinking about giving it a try?