We are very excited about the featured pattern for June: Dogwoods by Christina Harris. Christina's beautiful colourwork design has a great vintage feel to it. Her pattern won second prize in our recent footwork 1.0 design contest. These socks are knit from the toe up, but feel free to knit them from the top down instead. If you'd like to learn how to knit toe-up socks, drop by for a quick lesson. There are also plenty of tutorial videos at youtube.com.

Come join the knitalong in the store - Thursday nights from 4pm to 8pm, or in our Ravelry group!

Click here to download the pattern!

Everyone is either knitting socks or wanting to learn to knit socks. No longer brown, black and grey, the new yarns are incredible - bright colours, interesting stripe effects, hand dyed types and so on. Techniques are abounding, too - but if you are dipping your toe in for the first time (boo!) let's stick to the classic toe down version then you can play all you want

1. The cuff: About 2 inches of a stretchy rib or some other stitch that has some sproing to it.

2. The leg: For your basic mid-calf sock, it is a straight tube that is the same length as the foot. Throw in a nifty pattern stitch if you like.

3. The heel flap: An extension that is worked back and forth that covers the back of the heel and gives the extra room that you need to get your foot into an almost 45 degree turn.

4. Heel turn and gussets: The heel turn is where you bend the sock tube into its recognizable shape. The gussets take care of the extra stitches that you need to do this and reduces the number back to the original number of stitches that you cast on.

5. The Instep and Sole: The top part of the foot is the instep and the bottom is the sole. These two sections are part of the foot tube. If your getting all fancy, then work the instep stitches in the pattern stitch of your choice.

6. The Toe: A small section at the end of the foot of the sock that houses our piggies. Stitches are decreased to a blunt end and then grafted together for a seamless finish.

Now that we have the anatomy down, here is the math lesson. An adult sock should be about 7 1/2 inches to 8 inches around so you should do a swatch with the yarn and needle size to get an estimate of how many stitches your are going to need. Don't go by the ball band or label, go tighter. Once you have done that, round the number up or down so that it can be divisible by 4. Divide these onto three needles as follows: 1/4 on one needle, 1/2 on one needle and 1/4 on the remaining needle. If you like using 4 needles then put 1/4 on each needle.

For plain old socks (my personal favourite because they are so fast to make), cast on and work in 2x2 rib for 2 inches. Then change to stocking stitch until the leg measures the same as your foot.

Use half the stitches to make the heel flap. To make a sturdy flap that won't wear out quickly, work back and forth like this: Right side rows: *Slip 1 K1* repeat to end. On wrong side rows, Slip 1 Purl to the end. The number of rows worked should equal the number of stitches used for the flap.

Turn the heel. On the right side, work across 1/2 the heel flap stitches (1/4 of the total number of stitches) plus 2. Then K2tog and turn. On the wrong side, slip 1, p4, p2tog then turn. On right side rows, slip 1, work past the K2tog of the previous right side row then K2tog and turn. On wrong side rows, slip 1, work past the p2tog of the previous wrong side row then p2tog and turn. Keep going until all the stitches are worked. The total remaining heel stitches will be 1/2 the original number of heel stitches plus 2 (unless something went wrong.)

Gussets: Divide the heel sts onto 2 needles and put the instep sts (the ones that weren't worked during the whole heel turning process) onto 1 needle. Work across the first then second needle of the heel then pick up and knit 1 st for every slipped stitch along the edge of the heel flap. Work across the instep then with the spare needle pick up and knit along the other side of the heel flap. With the same needle, work across the first set of heel stitches. There we are back in the round again.

Carry on by decreasing immediately before and after the instep needle stitches until you have reduced the number to the original number of cast on stitches. Keep going until it woul be about an inch and a half short of fitting your foot.

Toe: Decrease at each end of your sole stitches and each end of your instep stitches on every other round until you half the number of original sts. Now decrease them until you have 1/4 the original (round up or down by two if you need to). Graft them together and you're done!

Now go, make socks! No pattern required!