These socks are designed with the first-time sock knitter in mind. Sock knitting can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. All you need to be able to do is work in the round, decrease and pick up stitches, and you can make these socks!

A translation is now available in French, thanks to Jennifer Joffre! Hooray!

Although this is a beginner pattern, it doesn’t contain ALL of the information that you need to know. You will need to find separate instructions for how to join to work in the round (if you’re unfamiliar with working on double points), how to k2tog and ssk, and how to kitchener. Don’t let that scare you… it’s just a note to let you know that this pattern doesn’t have absolutely everything :)

Please note: ‘ssk’ is an abbreviation for a decrease. Please look up how to do this decrease if you are unfamiliar.

These are worsted weight socks, which means that they’ll be warm, and work up quickly. They may not be the socks that you want to wear every day, but I think that you’ll be a less discouraged sock knitter if you learn the basics on a project that you’ll finish quickly. Save your pretty self-striping sock-weight yarn for your next pair.

warning This pattern is annotated with lots of helpful hints & notes… it’s sorta like a transcript of what a sock class with me is like. This is probably very boring if you’ve knit socks before!

notes on the pattern for those interested in teaching I designed this pattern to teach first-timers to knit socks, so there are a number of simplifying design features:

• Short cuff, so it’s quick to get started learning ‘sock-y’ things
• No leg, same reason as above
• No need to keep track of ‘needle 1 and needle 2’ like some sock patterns… because everyone always looses track!
• Heel flap is worked in stockinette, no fancy pattern to remember
• Only one round to remember for gusset decreases, so you don’t need to keep track of what round you’re on
• Worsted weight goes fast!