So You Want to Make a Pair of Toe Up Knee Socks?

Well, actually it's not so hard at all. The first part is the easy part: the foot. You actually don't really have to do any measurements at all to get this part started. But you do have to make some decisions. The first decision being: how am I going to cast on?

There are a number of different options. Probably the best place to start is Wendy Johnson's classic Knitty article "Tip Top Toes". In it, she describes setting up a short-row toe with a provisional cast on, a Figure Eight cast on that can be used to start a standard wedge or star toe, or a provisional cast on that can be used to start a standard wedge or star toe. The advantage of the second two technniques is that when you cast on, you don't really have to know how big around the sock is going to be. You can just keep increasing until you have a sock that is wide enough around for the foot you are knitting for. These are nice options if you don't know exactly what gauge you are going to get or don't really want to do much measuring.

More recently, there was a Knitty article by Judy Becker describing the "magic cast on" for toe up socks. This cast-on is an alternate cast on to the Figure 8 cast on for those who find it to be too fiddly.

There's also one other toe up start method that I know about: the Bosnian toe. Lucy Neatby describes it in her book "Cool Socks Warm Feet" (and I think she also describes it in some of her instructional videos) -- you can see an example of this toe in a pair I made a while back -- it is essentially a knitted garter stitch square. After you knit the square, you pick up stitches along each of the 4 sides and start knitting in the round.

This is, no doubt, just a jumping off point. I suspect that if I were to search farther into the depths of the Internet, I would find more ways to start toe up socks. But 5 ways is enough for me at this point, especially since I really liked the results I got from using a provisional cast on.

The other reason that I liked the provisional cast on is that it allowed me to do a wedge toe. The wedge toe is my favorite toe for me. If you were working on 4 needles, the wedge toe is created by increasing at the outer edge of each needle so that you get a wedge shape when the toe is flattened. Usually, I do my increases every other row until I get to the size I want for the body of the sock. The provisional cast on is also a nice way to set up a star toe. Star toes create a more rounded, decorative toe. To make a star toe you increase at 4 or 6 points evenly spaced around your stitches. If you increase at 4 points, you can do an increase row every other row. If you increase at 6 points, you probably want to do an increase row every third row. To see examples of what I am talking about, Socknitters has a great page that shoes pictures of the star and "standard" toe.

Why not a short-row toe for me? No good reason, it's just personal. I am not really happy with the way my short-row toes look. But they are definitely a good option.

Once you've decided on a toe type and picked the best cast on to help you make it happen, the next thing you need to do is keep increasing the number of stitches until you get to the size you want the instep of the sock to be. Obviously, the size will depend on the circumference of the ball of your foot and how snug you like your socks. Since you're starting toe up, you can just try the socks on as you go a long and stop when you get to the right fit. Good deal, eh? No measuring, no worries about gauge.

And then you just keep knitting until you get to about 2" short of the lenght of your foot from the tip of your big toe to the back of your heel. You'll probably want to do a little measuring for this.

Now, I am not going to say that you can only do a short row heel... (if you want to see a Dutch heel done toe up, check out the Widdershins pattern that was in the summer 2006 Knitty) but I am going to suggest that it is probably the easiest heel to execute for a toe up sock, and it's become my favorite heel because it fits in with my rhythm for making socks. There are lots and lots of ways to execute a short row heel. So many that it would be hard for me to link to all the possibilities. But if you're looking for a heel that I think gives the best results (I've tried a bunch of them in the quest for one that I could execute consistently without a lot of gapping) I'd like to point you to Priscilla Gibson-Roberts "Simple Socks, Plain and Fancy" (this book is an excellent guide to both short row toes and heels and also just sock construction in general.... if you like to knit socks, this is one of those "must have" technique books).

I do my short row heels on 50% of the stitches of the total sock and short-row down to 20% of the total stitches, but this may take some trial and error to find your perfect match. I don't have a very deep heel. If you do, you might want to consider starting your heels on 60% of the total stitches.

Once you're finished with the heel, it's going to be time to think about some of the more complicated elements of the sock. So I think this is a good time to take a short break. In the next part of the tutorial, I'll talk about taking measurements to help you fit your knee sock and what to think about if you want to include a pattern motif in the leg of the sock.