In the pharma industry, the term OOS means Out of Specification, which means that a medicine is not meeting the rigourous testing criteria that it must. This usually means the medicine must be discarded and replaced by a fresh batch, which in turn means that the medicine will be delayed in getting to the patient who needs it.

I originally designed these socks for the Sock Knitters Anonymous group’s March 2020 Mystery Knit Along. I knit several prototype socks, and had the pattern test knit by a group of wonderful volunteers. It was only when we were about 75% through the test knit that one of my volunteers asked whether I was sure that the design was meeting the requirements of the SKA theme for that month – “manipulating self-striping yarn”. I immediately sent photos and a description of the pattern to the SKA Mods, and then got the dreaded response – they didn’t meet the brief, so they were OOS!! My test knitters all agreed that the design was still worth publishing so I have renamed it and waited for the MKAL to end before releasing it.

These socks are worked top-down with a heel flap and short-row heel and use increases, decreases and a few easy cables that work well with self-striping, solid and semi-solid yarns. The patterns are all charted and I have included instructions for using a contrasting colour (CC) yarn for cuffs, heels and/or toes (this worked really nicely with self-striping yarn) but this is entirely the knitter’s choice.

The fabric that you get from this sock is less elastic than a plain vanilla sock, so the stitch count is slightly higher than for a standard vanilla sock. Again, this isn’t a problem as long as you follow the sizing recommendations, but I would suggest that you use a skein of yarn with over 400yds to it if you are knitting the medium or large sizes.

The design is for Ladies’ Small (Medium, Large) socks, corresponding to a leg/foot diameter of approximately 17cm/7” (20cm/8”, 23cm/ 9”). One of my protoypes was knit using sport weight yarn which produced a more generous size Large, so this is a good option for an XL size.
If in doubt about width and/or your ability to stretch the sock over your ankle, I’d suggest that you choose the larger size.

In addition to yarn and needles, you will most probably need a cable needle. Cabling without a needle is very do-able for most of this pattern, however there are one or two places in the pattern where you will probably need one. If you don’t have a cable needle, an extra DPN or even a toothpick will work. You’ll also need a tapestry needle for grafting the toe & weaving the ends, and a stitch marker if you use them for marking the start of a round.