Knitting For Beginners: Basic Sock Pattern | Sarah Carswell | Skillshare
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Knitting For Beginners: Basic Sock Pattern

teacher avatar Sarah Carswell, Fiber Artist

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Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      00 Introduction

      1:10

    • 2.

      01 Project Materials

      0:53

    • 3.

      02 Casting On Stitches

      1:41

    • 4.

      03 1x1 Ribbing

      1:15

    • 5.

      04 Adding Length to Your Sock

      0:45

    • 6.

      05 Knitting the Heel Flap

      3:18

    • 7.

      06 Turning the Heel

      4:13

    • 8.

      07 Shaping the Gusset

      6:21

    • 9.

      08 Shaping the Toe

      1:47

    • 10.

      09 Binding Off

      4:44

    • 11.

      10 Conclusion

      0:29

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About This Class

In this course, you will learn how to knit a pair of socks including how to make the heel flap, how to turn the heel, and how to shape the foot gusset and toe. By the end of the course, you will have completed your first pair of socks.

This course is for anyone who already knows how to do a cast-on, knit and purl stitches, and weave in ends. Completing these lessons will give you an excellent foundation for knitting socks and working with double-sided needles. 

For this course you will need:

  • Wool
  • Double-sided knitting needles
  • Scissors
  • Flexible measuring tape
  • Tapestry needle
  • Row counter

Let's start your knitting journey!

Meet Your Teacher

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Sarah Carswell

Fiber Artist

Teacher
Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. 00 Introduction: Hi everyone. I'm Sara, and in this course I'm going to be teaching you how to knit these socks. So these are a bit thicker than your normal socks are not going to fit into shoes very well. But the bigger needle size and the thicker wall makes the pattern easier to work. So they're a good starting place for making socks. For this course, you're going to need to already know how to do a long tail cast on a knit and Pearl stitch and how to weave in your ends to both a ribbing and a normal knit stitch. If you don't know how to do any of that, I have some knitting for beginner courses here on Skillshare where I walk through all of that stuff. You can go and check those courses out and then come back to this later. But other than that, I'm going to be walking you through the entirety of the pattern from working all of the cuffs stuff to making your heel flop and turning your work, as well as a right and a left decreases so that you can shape the August of your socks and the toes. And I'm gonna be teaching you how to bind off the toes so they very seamlessly blended together. Be sure to share pictures of your finished socks in the project section of the course so I can check them out along with any questions or issues that you encountered. But let's get into the first lesson. 2. 01 Project Materials: This project are going to need wool, a bunch of it because you're going to have to make a two socks. You're gonna have to go through all of this again after going through it the first time, you're going to need a set of double-sided needles. I'm using 4.5 millimeters for mine. They usually come in sets of five, are only going to need four of them for this pattern. So you can, the other one to the side, a pair of scissors, tapestry needle for when we're binding off and weaving in our ends, stitch counter or something that you can keep track of your stitches with. They're really cheap. And this is just a very basic one. You'd get more complicated ones if you want. But you can also just have a piece of paper and a pen and just keep a tally of what row you're on. It'll really help you when we start to make the heel and all of that. And a flexible measuring tape so that you can make your socks the size that you want them. And that's all you'll need for your socks. 3. 02 Casting On Stitches: To start off, we need to cast on our stitches. So we're going to be using a long-tail cast on. You should be familiar with this. So we're just going to take our working yarn and make sure we have a nice long tail so we can have enough stitches. Now we're actually going to be casting on different number of stitches depending on which needle we're using. We're gonna be casting onto three of our needles and then have our fourth one for actually working our stitches. So for our first needle, we're just going to put our first stitch on with our long tail cast on and we're going to cast on 16 stitches. Now how many you cast on may change depending on how big you want to make your socks. Just keep in mind that we're going to be using a one-by-one rubbing. So it's gonna be stretchy. So you're going to want to aim for a little bit shorter than you actually need. But if you want to follow along with me, just so that you can get the hang of making socks before you start to mess around with the measurements and things like that, you're going to start off with 16 stitches on your first needle. Once you have that, then you're going to CAS Center next two needles and you're going to only put 12 stitches on both of those. 12 instead of 16 or for your next two needles. And that'll be all of your stitches cast on. When you're done with your cast on, you should have 16 on your first needle and then 1212 on your second third. This weird configuration will make sense later when we're doing the heel. But for now, don't worry about this. A difference in the number. You just want to make sure that you have an even number of stitches for each of your needles because we want to end with a pearl stitch once we get into our ripping. 4. 03 1x1 Ribbing: Now that you're at, stitches are all cast on, we can start with the ribbing that is just gonna be at the end so that you get a nice little stretchy part to your socks so it's easier to put on. So to do that we're just going to do a normal one by one ribbing. So that's one knit stitch followed by a one pearl stitch, super simple. And that's why it's important that you have an even number of stitches on your needles so that you're always going to end with a pearl. And he would always start with a knit stitch, just knitting like normal and then hurling like normal, super simple for your ribbing. You've probably done this kind of ribbing before. You can also do a two-by-two rubbing. So that's when you knit two stitches than Carl two stitches, it will work the same way where you're going to end each of your needles with Carling and then you can start all of your needles with knitting. So it's really up to you which one you want to do. I like the one-by-one better, but you're just going to work your way around with the one-by-one rubbing or whichever ribbing you choose. Keeping in mind that the remnants of your long tail cast on are going to mark the beginning of your row. And you're just going to keep working around until you have two inches of that one-by-one ribbing for your cuff. 5. 04 Adding Length to Your Sock: Once you have your cuff to the length that you want, I actually like to add a little bit of space between the cuff and the heel. So on our finished sock you can see that there's a bit of space between the finished cuff and then when the he'll flap starts. So I like to add a couple of inches of just straight knitting in the round. So not doing any purlin just in its stitches all the way around for a couple of inches just to give me that little bit of space between the cuff and the hue. You can skip this if you want something more like an ankle sock. But yeah, it's just knitting around to get that extra length before we start into all of the heels stuff, which is a little bit more complicated. 6. 05 Knitting the Heel Flap: Now that you have the space between your cuff and your heel, we can actually start getting into setting up our heels. So this is where your row counter is going to come in handy or however you choose to keep track of your rows because we're going to have to make a certain number of rows for the back of the heel. That's going to be at this part right here. So to do that, we're going to have to rearrange our stitches a little bit. So for our first needle, so that's the woman we put 16 stitches. We're going to slip a few more stitches onto it so that we have in 20. So we're going to do that from taking stitches from our second needle. So to do that, we just didn't need to slip the stitches as if we're going to Perl. So we have 16 originally. It means we're going to need four more to get to 21234. Now we want to have an even number on our two remaining needles. We want to have ten stitches. So we're going to slip two stitches from our third needle onto that second one that we just took our stitches from. Same thing, just slip as if to parole. So 12 and then you should have ten on both of those needles. Okay. So now that we've rearranged all of our stitches, you should have 20 on your first needle and then 1010 on your second, third. So too do our heel. We're basically just going to forget about these two other needles. We're just going to focus on our first needle with our 20 stitches and we're just going to knit back and forth. So to do this, we're going to just knit across this first needle. Knit as normal all the way across. Once you're done just sitting across, That's our first row. So on our row counter we're going to mark one. And then instead of continuing in the round, we're just going to turn our work around and we're going to go back over this same needle. We're going to Perl this time though. You can see that this is what the outside looks like with the straight knitting stitch. And then to keep that pattern and not get into a garter stitch, which we would get if you were just sitting back and forth like for a scarf, we're going to have to Pearl Harbor basically trying to match this wrong side on the inside. So what we're going to do is we're actually going to just slip the first stitch. So we're gonna take our working needle and slip as if to Perl to just transfer that first stitch over. And then we're just going to Perl for the rest of our stitches all the way across. And then once you are finished, Darling, all across, we're going to follow up our work again so that you can work that same needle. And we're going to keep track of our rows on our road counter. For the next board, just going to slip the first stitch again. So slip it as if to pero. And that's super important because that's going to help us pick up stitches later. Don't worry about it right now, but just make sure that you slip the first stitch and then we're just going to admit as normal across and you're just going to continue that where you're knitting across one row and then curling the next one, making sure that you slip the first stitch with each row until you do 21 rows. So you're going to knit one extra time and that'll be the back of your heel finished. 7. 06 Turning the Heel: Once you're done the back of the heel, it's gonna look a little bit odd, but now we need to actually change the direction of our work. At this point we've been working down, but we need to actually start going across instead as we work the NGSS it. So to do that, we're going to have to turn our heel, which is probably the most complicated part of a Itzhak pattern. So I'm going to walk you through all of the steps for it because it can be super, super confusing. What we're going to do is still on that same needle, we're going to Pearl 12 stitches. So basically we're going to be starting short of the actual end of the row before we turn our work, It's going to seem really weird the first time that you do it, but eventually you'll get into a rhythm. So pearl 12 stitches, then we're going to hurl two stitches together. So you're just going to pero like you normally would. But instead of only picking up one stitch, we're going to pick up two at the same time. So we're just going to pull those together and then we're going to Perl one more stitch. And then we're gonna turn our work just like we were doing before, but we're not finishing the row. You can see if he's still have some stitches leftover. We're not going to knit those for this one. For row two, we're going to slip our first stitch, just like we were doing before. And then we're going to knit five stitches, 12 or five, and then we're going to knit two together. So NTID is normal buttons to picking up one stitch or picking up two at the same time and knitting those together. And then we're going to knit one more stitch. Those two places where we've decreased, those are going to be at the end of our he'll never going to turn our work. And we're going to do purlin again. For this one, we're going to slip the first stitch as if to Pearl. And then we're going to Perl six stitches and then we're going to approach two together so you can make sure that you're in the right spot because there's going to be this big gap in your work compared to other stitches. You can see that it's a lot closer to the needle and then there's this big gap. That's always we are going to be doing your decreases. Another way to think of it as each row we're going to be having one more stitch in-between are two ends of our hill. I know confusing, but I'm going to walk you through all of it. So after you have knitted your six stitches, we're going to Pearl two together and then Perl one more and turn our work. Now with our knit row, we're going to slip the first stitch and then we're going to knit eight stitches or seven stitches. I'm sorry, I'm getting confused. Seven suggests one more we did before. We get to this big gap and we're going to knit two stitches together. And then we're going to hit one more and turn our work. Then we're going to slip our first stitch for our pearl row. And then we're going to Pearl eight stitches. And then when we get to that big gap, we're going to Pearl two stitches together and then PRO one more and turn our work. Now for our nitro, we're going to slip the first stitch and then knit nine stitches. And then when we get to that big gap, We're going to knit two together and then knit one more and then turnover. So for our next pro row, we're going to slip the first one. Now this is where the decreasing gets a little bit confusing because we've run out of rooms at that big gap is actually gonna be the last two stitches. But we actually want to make sure that we can still stitch into that last stitch. So we're just going to Pearl until we only have three stitches left. So when you have three stitches left, we're going to Pearl two stitches together and then perl into that last stitch and turn our work again one more row and then we're all done turning the work. We're going to slip the first stitch and then we're going to knit until we only have three stitches a left on our needle, and we only have three left. We're going to knit two together and then net into the last stitch. You should have 12 stitches left on your needle. And look, we've turned our work. Our needle is now facing in a different direction. So that is how you turn your heel. 8. 07 Shaping the Gusset: Now that you've finished turning your heel, we're going to actually start shaping the Gosset of the sock. So where most of your foot is going to be to do this, we're going to have to pick up stitches. If you remember, with shaping the back of our heel, we slipped the first stitch. And the reason for that is if you look at the end, you're going to see those V's of those stitches on the end. And we're going to be using those to pick up stitches and add them. So what we're going to do is with our needle that has on our stitches from turning our heel, we're going to pick 11 stitches by stitching into those stitches on the end. This can be a little bit tricky sometimes, sometimes you have to kind of find stitches or skip over stitches. Sometimes the numbering doesn't always work out. I feel like I always have an extra stretch every time I do this with these v's on the end, we're going to take our needle with our stitches and slip it so that it picks up both legs of that V. And then we're going to take our working yarn and we're just going to pull it over like a knit stitch and then pull the stitch up and over to create a new stitch on our needle. That's one. We're going to pick up 11 along the sides. One so far our next one, find another V, put our needle into that stitch. So we pick up both legs of that beam and put our yarn over and then pull it up and over to John to pick up so that you have 11 new stitches that you're adding onto this needle. Once you've picked up those stitches, we're going to move on to our second needle and you're going to have to take your ND needle that you have. And what we're gonna do is we're going to actually put the stitches from these two other needles. Remember we had ten on each of them. We're just going to sit all the way across so that these stitches are all on one needle. So you're just going to knit across and nothing fancy and add all of those stitches together. So one needle and then I'm just going to keep going with that same working needle and start knitting those other ten stitches onto the same needle. So you should have 20 stitches on that needle. Now, now we're going to go back to picking up a stitches back to those V's at the end of our heel. And we're going to pick up 11 again with an empty needle, just putting it into those fees and then knitting through until we have 11 stitches. Once you have your 11 stitches, we're going to knit through some of the stitches on the first needle, the needle that has these two just from our heel that we were turning. Remember that we had 12 stitches when we finished off at heel. So we want to end so that we have the middle of our heels. We're going to knit six of those stitches over that. We have the beginning of a row set to the center of that heel. You can see there that we have this space in-between are two needles is right at the center of our heel, and that's gonna be the new beginning of our rows. So it's not marked by this string from our long tail cast on anymore. Now the beginning of our row is going to be the center of this. So I just kind of keep track of it given that we have pretty obvious shape. But if you need a little bit of extra help, you can always take a stitch marker or a paperclip and just clip it into that center stitch so that it is a very clear marker and email. Whenever I get to the end of a needle and I see that stitch marker, that's the beginning of my row. So you can always have that there too. So now we have all of our stitches that we need for Augustine, what we're going to have to start some decreases. I know we just went through all of the work of picking up those digits, but now we have to narrow down the Gazette so that it fits our foot. So you can see here that we have the stitching and that is are decreasing if you know anything about left leaning and right-leaning decreases or we're gonna be using that as a, we narrow down our Gazette. What we're going to do is we're going to just knit across these stitches until we only have a three stitches left on our first needle. So when you have three stitches left, we're going to knit two stitches together. This is going to get a right-leaning decrease. Just pick both of those up and knit them together and then knit the last stitch on that row. And then for our second needle, we're just going to knit straight across. No decreases happening is to finish off that needle and then we're going to go to our third needle. And what we're going to do is knit the first stitch and then we're going to do left leaning decrease or a FSK if you want to think of it that way. So that is basically when we slip as if to knit. So we've been slipping as if to Pearl notice twist up our stitches. But this time we want that little bit of a twist to give it that left lean to the stitches. We're going to put our needle in as if we're going to knit and then just slip that stitch off. Same with the next one. Put our needle in as if to knit and then just slip it off. And then we're going to nip those two together. So we're going to take our needle with the rest of our stitches and put that in it, pick up those stitches and slip that off. And then we're going to put our working needle in to the back of those stitches. A little bit different than a normal net. And then just knit those two together. And that's gonna be our decrease. And then just knit the rest of our stitches. And that will get you back to the end of your row. And then for the next row, you're just going to knit all the way around and then you're going to degree or decreases again. So knit until you only have three left, knit two together, and then on your third needle knit FSK and then the rest of them doing a just straighten it across every other layer. So decrease and then just knit, decrease and then just knit and you're going to keep decreasing until you have ten stitches on your first needle, 20 on that second one because we're not decreasing or touching any of those stitches, just knitting across. And then ten stitches on your third needle. And then when you're done, all of your decreases, you're just going to keep knitting in the circle because you're going to have shaped your dataset and you're just going to keep knitting like normal and the round until you stop about an inch of where you actually want the length of your SOC to be. You're going to stop an inch short so that we can start to shape the toe at the end. 9. 08 Shaping the Toe: Once you have the NGSS it to the length that you want to keeping in mind that you want to stop an inch before the actual length of that you need. We're going to start shaping the toe. This is just going to be decreasing, which you should have some experience with since we've been in a few times. But what we're going to do is with our first needle, we're going to just knit up until we have two stitches left. And then we are going to knit those two stitches together. So just picking up both of them and knitting them together. Then on our second needle we're going to SSNK, so slip, stitch and then the next one put them back on our needle and then with our working needle going in through the of both those stitches and then knitting them together and then knitting across the rest of that needle except for the last two stitches. And then with those last two stitches, we're just going to knit both of them together. And then for our third needle, we're going to FSK again. So just flipping those stitches and then knitting them together and then all the way to the end. That's the basic decrease pattern. The next row, you're just going to knit all the way around just like we did when we were shaping the NGSS it originally doing those decreases. So you'll knit all the way round to the next row. Then you'll knit needle one, except for the last two stages which you'll knit together than FSK at the beginning of the second beetle, net across to knit the two elastic fibers together. Then on the third needle, FSK again infinite and you're going to keep doing that. One decrease rho, one knit row until you have five stitches on your first needle tends stitches on your second ETL and five stitches on your third needle. 10. 09 Binding Off: Once you're finished decreasing so that you have five stitches, ten stitches, and then five stitches, we can bind off the end of our toe. So the first thing that we need to do is we actually need to narrow this down to two needles. So what we're going to do is take our third needle that has our stitches on it. And we're just going to knit these five stitches from our first needle onto our third needle. So we're just going to stitch across like normal. If you remember when we did the heel and we were transferring over some stitches, we knit those. So we're going to knit those instead of slip them because we want to make sure that our yarn is coming off of the end of that needle, but also it's going to even out our knitting rows so you can put your other two needles off to the side. You don't need them anymore. And I'm going to turn this so that my working yarn is off to my right. So what we're gonna do is we're going to weave these two sets of stitches to gather. So you should have ten on each needle. And by doing this weaving stitch, you're basically going to get this continuous stitch all the way around the end of the toe. It just looks really nice with socks alike this because your toes are going to be pushing out that end a little bit. Having a nice continuous stitch just looks really nice on the socks. So first thing we need to do is cut off at nice along piece of yarn because we're going to need to be able to stitch through all of these. So when in doubt, give yourself too much room, always aim for more water than you think you need. Because the last thing you need is a running out of wool when you're part-way through something. And then you're gonna take your needle and thread the end of your wool, the roof so we can start stitching with it. To do with this stitching, you basically have to think of it as you have frontal needles less than one, it's closest to you in the back needle which is farthest from you. We're gonna set up the first two stitches and we're going to take our tapestry needle and we're gonna go into the first stitch of the closest us as if to Pearl and then pull our yarn through. And then on the back needle, which is furthest from you, we're going to take our tapestry needle, put it through as if to knit, and then pull all of that yarn through. And that's our setup for this. So now we're going to get into the actual pattern. We're going to start with the front needle closest to you. So we're going to go into the first stitch as if to knit and pull our yarn through. And then we're just going to pull that stitch off. And then for the next stitch still on that front needle facing, you were gonna go in as if to Pearl and not pull that stitch off. So we're just going to pull our yarn through and leave that stitch on. Then for our back needle, we're gonna go into that first stitch as if to Pearl and pull our yarn through. And then we're going to pull that stitch off. And then for the next stitch still on that back needle, we're gonna go in as if to knit and just pull our yarn through. And we're not pulling that stitch off either, relieving it on and don't be afraid to pull on that working yarn to tighten it up. You're not gonna get any curling or anything like that unless you really, really pull at it. So it's okay to make sure it's nice and snug and thus the pattern. So one more time, we're going to start with our front needle and we're gonna go in as if to knit for that first stitch, pull our yarn through and then pull that stitch off. And then for the next stitch still on that front needle, we're gonna go in as if to Pearl and pull our yarn through, but leave that stitch on our needle. And then for our back needle so farthest from us, we're gonna go in as if to Pearl and pull our yarn through and then pull that stitch off and then still on that back needle for the next stitch we're going to go in as if to knit, pull our yarn through and leave that stitch on our needle. That's the pattern you're just gonna keep going through until you only have one stitch on each of your needles. And then there's a little bit of a variation at the end. So let me finish binding these off. I can show you that little variation right at the end to finish up your work. Now that you only have those two suggests left or we're going to do is go through the stitch on the front needle so closest to you as if to knit and then go into the stitch on the back needle as F2 pearl. Then you can put your two needles out and put them to the side. We don't need them anymore. What I like to do before I fully pull this tight is I like to actually put the tapestry adult through my work. So through that little end of the toe so I can pull the excess wool to the inside of my sock because that's where you're gonna weave in your ends so you don't want it hanging out on the outside anyway. And that is the end, the toe. So you can see how it all just disappears into each other. So all you need to do now is weave in the ends and your sock is finished. 11. 10 Conclusion: Congratulations on finishing your first pair of socks mixture that you go back through a pattern to make your second sock so that you have a full pair and share pictures of your finished socks in the project section of the course so I can check them out along with any questions or difficulties you ran into, so I can help you through some of that. Also be sure to check out my other courses here on Skillshare. I add new courses regularly so you can always find new projects as you further your knitting journey. I hope to see you in the next class. Bye.