Sock Saturday- Casting off

So, you’ve got most of the sock finished, all that is left is ribbing (so the sock doesn’t fall down during the day!) and casting off. The ribbing is fairly basic- choose whatever ribbing and get to it! Just don’t skimp on it, you want at least an inch and probably closer to 1.5- I use 1 but am planning on switching to 1.5 soon, as some of my older socks aren’t staying up so well any more.

After the ribbing, it’s time to cast off. Casting off normally isn’t going to cut it for this, it just isn’t stretchy enough. I use a cast off called Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off (it’s decidedly not mine!). You basically do either a yarn over, or reverse yarn over between each stitch so you have more y6arn length used to make it stretchier.

I use a 2×1 ribbing for my socks, and they look like this when I’m about to cast off:

I just knit the first stitch, rather than do Jenny’s trick, so, for this tutorial, we will be beginning with the second stitch.

On the knit side, you need to do a reverse yarn over, so you bring the yarn over from back to front, and then under from front to back ready to knit the next stitch

Knit the next stitch as usual, and then cast off the first two stitches, so only the last stitch is on the needle. In the beginning, it is easier to do this one stitch at a time, but as you get more experienced, it becomes quicker to do both stitches.

For a purl stitch, you need to do a normal yarn over. So the yarn goes over the top of the needle from front to back, and then under the needle in preparation to purl

Again, purl the next stitch, and cast off the other two stitches on the needle. Repeat this all the way around, and finish as usual. Darn in the ends, put your foot into the sock, and admire! Or take the sock and wave it around in everyone’s face to show them that you made a sock!

The main trick with this technique is remembering which yarn over to use. The way I remember is by thinking that before whichever stitch you’re doing (knit or purl), you want to bring the yarn under the work (so front to back for knitting, or back to front for purling). The the yarn over has to work with that!

And that’s that! All done. Next week there might be a post about mending socks, if I can find any damaged ones to mend to show you! If you’ve been following along (either as I’ve been posting these, or afterwards!) drop me a link to some photos, or something! I’d love to see more socks!