Math.
August 3rd, 2006
There is no escaping it: my feet, hands, head, shoulders, arms, chest and butt are not the same size and shape of most female knitters…or pattern-writers. So for many of the items I make, there comes a time when I have to break out the old pen and paper and figure out how I’m going to make, for example, a sock sized for a women’s size 8 foot fit my men’s 10 1/2 foot. This is annoying enough when you haven’t even started the sock–but is considerably more so when you’re just turning the heel (as I am) and need to figure out how many increases, how many stitches, how large a heel flap, how many decreases, and so on to get you back to the same number of stitches you started with.
This, it just has to be said, involves math.
Now, I was excellent at math in high school. It was one of my very best subjects. That was thirty years ago. And, by my calculations, that is approximately 2/3 of my lifetime in the past. I am now old and bald and my brain is tired. I can write down a relatively simple problem, like 168 divided by 12, feeling all jaunty and full of confidence…and then I can stare at it, completely absorbed, for about ten minutes, wondering where to even begin. I can try to conjure from the mists of memory the method for long division–I can draw the little lines–I can put the numbers on the right sides of the lines (the big one goes here…and the smaller one goes here…doesn’t it?) and hope the sight of this will spark some long-neglected synapse into thrilling action. Or I can reach for the mouse, the palm pilot, the cellphone, and root around for the calculator function.
But. (And this is not to dissuade anyone who has not yet knitted a sock, though I would encourage you to do so from a pattern that adjusts to your size.) But. Even though the mathematical principles of sockmaking are perfectly clear to me–and there really is no excuse when you’re working on two circulars as half your stitches are already on one set, and half on the other–and I understand the structural elements that I am trying to achieve by making and wrapping and turning my stitches and flinging my yarn and my needles about, hither and yon, I must make a grave admission: I. Am. Now. Too. Old. For. Math.
Also, I have turned and unturned this heel three four times now–not because of the math but because each and every of my make-ones makes a nasty little hole, no matter what technique I use and no matter how hard I try. This is not normally a problem. I don’t know why it’s a problem now.
However, I am halfway through the fracking sock and nothing is going to stop me. I am learning to love the holes, to embrace them as welcome ventilation at the back of my foot, because if I do anything more complicated than what I’ve already done, I will not remember it for the second sock.
Yes, the second sock.
This may well drive me back to Slouch: The Sweater That Will Not End.
And how is your summer going?
Update: True to her word, Brooke has provided the method (and a formula! and a Python script!) for calculating the increases/decreases/what-have-you for the Widdershins heel, no matter what number of stitches you’re working with. Hurray!
9 Comments Add your own
1. Jeff | August 4th, 2006 at 7:43 am
The summer is going great here in Boston. New techniques are being learned everyday- mostly out of being inspired by posts like yours. I am about to take the plunge into sock knitting and hope that I can figure out the math that I need. Do you find it a little bit easier to handle since you’re going toe up in the pattern instead of starting at the cuff?
By the way, I love the colors that you’re using on this project.
2. anne | August 4th, 2006 at 9:16 am
i SO hear you! i design every day and use measurements and math constantly, but as i near 50, i am finding that many days, in the afternoon, i come to a point where i am staring at the problem in fromt of me as if it were written in martian.
is it stress, the time crunch, age?? who knows or cares! just give me the numbers once in a while.
i wrote a top-down sock pattern this summer that has 16 sizes from 24 sts through 80, and am considering expanding that to 88. people who have used it are raving about the heel fit, though i don’t have any sort of secret formula.
it’s written for 2 x 2 rib, but you can change out the stitch pattern to suit your taste. i am also thinking i should write a toe-up pattern the same.
i enjoy your blog and sorta wish you would write more! have a good weekend
3. david_demchuk | August 4th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Anne, I’m thinking you should write a toe-up pattern the same as well–maybe by Sunday?
Overall I find toe-up socks to be much easier and more convenient than top-down ones, not least because you can try them on as you go along. That said, if you like a flap heel instead of a short-row heel, you’ve been crap-out-of-luck until now. I’m going to try turning this heel *one more time* and if I can’t get it to look good, I’m going back to short rows and not looking back.
Gah.
4. Brooke | August 4th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
I found your blog through a little ego-google of my own pattern. Multiple people have inquired, so I’m planning on writing up instructions for working the Widdershins heel on a different number of stitches this weekend. Can you hold on until then?
Also, re: holes on m1, just use a different increase that doesn’t give you holes. Knitty required me to give a specific one instead of just saying “inc 1″, but there isn’t any reason why you have to go with that one if it gives you problems. I actually used mirrored increases on my sock, but realized that was a little picky for something that will usually be inside my shoe.
5. david_demchuk | August 4th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Hey Brooke–congratulations on the pattern! I can definitely hang on until you write up your enhanced instructions. As for the increases, I’ve tried a few different ones…I’m going to try a lifted increase (bringing up a stitch from below and knitting into that) and seeing how that looks. The other thing I’m struggling with is the wraps on the purl stitches–they always seem to be much tighter than the wraps I make on my knit stitches. I may have to find a way to loosen them up a little. But I won’t give up!
6. Nichole R. | August 5th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Call me crazy, but I LOVE knitting math. Sometimes I even do extra knitting math because I’m bored. I wonder if I could make a career out of doing other people’s….Good luck on your socks!
7. Amanda | August 8th, 2006 at 10:17 am
There is a great book for adjusting sock patterns to fit a variety of feet, men and women. Sensational Knitted Socks. Its full of charts that do most of the math for you. You can plug in the sock pattern of your choice, and let the charts guide you. Still a lot of need for swatching and measuring, but at least it will give you a place to start, so I think its worth looking at, if you haven’t already.
8. david_demchuk | August 8th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Nicole: You’re crazy.
Amanda: Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve heard of this book, and have heard good things about it, but haven’t picked it up. I’ll have to take a look!
9. Emma | August 11th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Ah socks….socks socks socks. I’ve been working on socks for a few months now, just trying different patterns and yarns and such. I’m working on a pair of socks for my husband, whose feet defy any and all patterns, and I entertained the idea for a few minutes of trying to math out the pattern to meet my needs. Once I realized there was no way that was gonna happen, I took his measurements and knitted a swatch with bigger needles and thicker yarn. It so happened that my swatch was about 1 1/2 times the recommended gauge, and his foot was about 1 1/2 times bigger than the pattern, so I knitted one of the socks to see what would happen and I think it worked out perfectly! Basically I wound up with one enormous sock that I think will fit him.
I started my sock venture by working on a thrummed sock from Fleece Artist, and I will tell you that it’s a beautiful sock, but I haven’t yet done the second one because it is such a pain in the arse. That’s actually why I started knitting more socks - just to get the hang of it so I could do a better job with these thrummed beauties.
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