Market Salad Pedicure Socks

As my friend Andrea requested a pair of pedicure socks from me, I decided to tackle the challenge and started to test knit a pair.  I got the pattern from Patons - it is their free Stretch Socks Pedicure Socks.


It is knit with a set of four double point needles (DPN) in size 3.25mm.  I have a very hard time knitting with DPNs - it is like wrestling with an octopus with spines.  I instead used the Magic Loop technique where you use a very long (40") circular needle and just move the sock around the cable to knit.


I was merrily knitting away when I got totally stumped.  I had to switch to DPNs to get an idea of what was suppose to happen.  Here is what I learned:


Arrange Heel stitches - instead of the arrangement on three needles, I just split the stitches in half, one on each side of the cable.  I then just knit the first set of 24 stitches back and forth to make the heel.  So on 1 needle, I have 13 stitches and 26 on the other needle.


To Make Instep - after the 13 stitches already on the needle, pick up 11 stitches from the heel and knit, continue to knit the 26 stitches of the top of the sock, and then pick up another 11 stitches on the other side of the heel.  You should then arrive at the 13 heel stitches and then only knit 6 of those stitches.  Add a stitch marker here.  Depending on how close you want the pick ups, you might want to pick up a few more stitches to prevent little holes from forming and just decrease the stitches to match the pattern.


For the first round - knit 15 stitches and then K2tog and knit 1.  Place another stitch marker here.  Knit 26 stitches, place stitch marker.  Knit 1, slip 1, knit 1, psso and knit to marker.


For the second round - knit around.  The number of stitches are 17, 26, 18 in between the markers.


I then started the real socks.  I decided to use the market salad yarn that I got from a contest I entered.  I think this is a good fit since the market salad was for supper club and Andrea is an originating member.

The photo resulted in this yarn.

Here is the first sock.

After knitting on the test sock, I determined that my gauge was too loose.  I changed my needle size to 3mm and the stitch definition was much better.  You can see the difference between the two.

I'm going to frog the test sock and use the yarn for something else.