Gemma 
Welcome back to my Project Knitwear series, where I’m documenting my journey into the world of knitting my own clothes! This time, I’m tackling another (my fourth!) pair of socks: the Itty Bitty Berry Socks by Stone Knits.
Table of Contents
The Pattern
The Itty Bitty Berry Socks are worked cuff-down and in the round. Stranded colourwork with three shades of yarn is used to create the super cute, repeating strawberry pattern. The folded cuff features a picot edging in a contrast colour and the socks are ankle-length, so they are perfect for spring and summer! The pattern also includes a Short Row Heel and a Wedge Toe (the latter of which is finished off by grafting the remaining stitches together).
The pattern is written with the Magic Loop method in mind, but I opted to use short circular needles instead. This was my first time using short circulars for socks and I found them so helpful for the colourwork: my colourwork often gets a little untidy at each side of the sock when using Magic Loop, but using the short circular needles really eliminated that problem (and made the whole process absolutely fly by, which is an added bonus!). I’d definitely use this method again.
The pattern also includes a section on ‘Knitting Colourwork Tips’, which basically talks about carrying the floats (specifically for sock-knitting), yarn dominance and weaving in the ends. This was really helpful and I would definitely recommend reading through it before you get started if you make these socks. However, I didn’t use the ‘Weavin Stephen’ method mentioned for weaving in the ends and opted to just weave them in with a needle later on, because I think this gives a more secure finish.
I’m a UK Size 6 and I have pretty narrow feet. I made a Size 2 in this pattern. I did add an extra 1-strawberry repeat (an additional set of rounds 1-10) to the foot of my socks (so, in total, I had 6 rows of strawberries on the feet), just to get the right length for my feet. The fit isn’t perfect: the socks themselves are actually quite thick (an unfortunate side effect of 3-colour colourwork!) and they just don’t fit my foot quite as snugly as I would have liked, especially for a short, summer pair of socks. I think the smaller size would be too small though, so I wonder if a different yarn (perhaps a slightly more hardwearing/stretchy, or even just a thinner one) might help?
The Yarn
I used Cascade Heritage yarn for these socks, in the following shades: Strawberry Cream (5648), Red (5607) and Sage (5635). I opted for a paler pink background shade than the one in the pattern, simply because I like the contrast of the colours.
Cascade Heritage is a 4-ply, 75% wool/25% nylon yarn that comes in 100g skeins. I used it with the recommended needle size from the pattern (2.25mm). For my socks, I used the following amount of each shade:
- Strawberry Cream: 43g
- Red: 13g
- Sage: 5g
Cascade Heritage: Mini Review
This was my first time using Cascade Heritage and I really loved knitting with it! It’s super soft and comes in a huge range of different colours, so I think it’s a really good option for colourwork projects. It doesn’t feel like it’s the most hardwearing sock yarn— it’s a little too soft (bordering on silky, in a fluffy kind of way) for that, and it doesn’t have quite the same level of stretchiness as other 75:25 wool/nylon blends, but it feels very comfortable against the skin and shows the colourwork pattern well.
After blocking, I did find that the yarn fluffed up quite significantly: it’s not a huge problem, but it definitely has a different feel post-blocking to when you’re knitting with it, which is a shame. I also found that blocking it didn’t even out my colourwork as much as I expected, which was also a shame (this could absolutely be because of the neatness of my colourwork, but I did feel my floats were pretty even?)!
The yarn comes in 100g skeins and is priced at £8.99 a ball, which feels like quite a reasonable price point.
Overall, I would absolutely use this yarn again, but the post-blocking fluff-up is definitely a drawback for me.
The Knitting Process
I really enjoyed the process of making these socks: I do like knitting stranded colourwork and this was such a simple, repetitive chart that I felt like I could really get to grips with the process and find a colourwork method that works well for me (which I did— more on that in a second!). I did make a few, slight changes to the pattern here/there, so I’ll be sure to highlight those here as I go through the process.
Cuff + Picot Edge
The cuff is folded over in the pattern (which is one of my favourite things to do with sock cuffs, because I find it really helps the socks to stay on my feet!) and features a picot edge worked in a contrast colour.
I opted to use a crochet provisional cast-on for the cuff and knit the folded cuff edges together (as opposed to whip-stitching them together, as suggested by the pattern). I prefer to knit my folded cuffs together because a) I find it less labour-intensive and b) I think it gives a stretchier finish, which is particularly helpful for a sock!
This was my first time working a picot edge and I really enjoyed it! I think it’s quite magical how such a simple method turns into such a fancy looking edge. I also love how a contrast colour is used for the picot— I think it really adds an extra something-something to the socks.
Colourwork
As I mentioned, the colourwork chart for these socks is really great: there are artfully placed seed stitches that mean you don’t have to worry too much about your floats and the strawberries themselves are so simple that the pattern becomes quite easy to memorise.
Because of the relative straightforwardness of the chart, I decided to test my colourwork limits a little and see if I could find a more efficient method for knitting stranded colourwork. In the past, I’ve always worked colourwork very slowly, dropping each yarn strand and picking up the new one as needed throughout, but I saw this video on Instagram recently and decided to give the two-handed method a go! I loved this method: it made the process go so quickly and made it super easy for me to keep an even tension and keep the floats the right length (not too long, not too short!). Overall, I will definitely be using this method for 2-colour colourwork in the future! I did, however, find that I couldn’t use it so easily on the rounds where there were three colours in play, so, for those rounds, I just reverted back to my tried-and-true, drop-and-switch method. Not the most efficient, but it worked!
Typically, for colourwork in the round, it’s recommended that you knit the project ‘inside out’, so that the floats have a slightly longer path to travel around the edge of the work, rather than along the inside. I usually do do this, but I just couldn’t make it work for this project: the small diameter and short length just meant it kept turning back right side out! Luckily though, my new colourwork method seemed to work perfectly for getting the right length floats on its own, so, in the end, I just gave up with the knitting inside out and the socks are perfect, so I’m happy!
Short Row Heel
If you’ve been here before, you’ll know that I’m a die-hard fan of the Shadow Wrap Heel, but I decided to follow the pattern this time around and give the Short Row Heel a go.
Honestly, it was… fine? I do think the heel is neat (bar some slight gaps at each corner, but I often get that (and a potential solution to this is highlighted at the beginning of the pattern!), but I’m not sure that it has overtaken the Shadow Wrap Heel for me. I just found the process a little more involved (and the instructions a little more overwhelming!), plus I don’t find it ‘hugs’ my actual heel quite as well, so I’m still very much a Shadow Wrap Heel girl.
Foot
The foot is knitted in exactly the same way as the leg: in the round, following the colourwork chart. As I mentioned, I did add an extra row of strawberries, just to get the right length for my feet (so I ended up with 6 rows of strawberries total on the foot: one more than the pattern calls for, while I did the same, 3 rows called for by the pattern on the leg). This was a super easy adjustment to make: the pattern gives clear instructions for how to adapt the length of both the foot and the leg, so you can easily customise these socks to fit your feet.
Toe
The toe is worked (I believe) as a Wedge Toe: one of the most common toes in the world of sock-knitting. I like it and it was very straightforward, but I think do still prefer the Rounded Toe that I tend to use (full details in this post), which features a slightly different distribution of decreases, in terms of look and fit.
This project also gave me another opportunity to practise my grafting: I’m definitely getting better!
Weaving in the Ends
As I mentioned, I opted to weave in all my ends with a sewing needle at the end of the knitting process, instead of using the ‘Weavin Stephen’ method suggested in the pattern. This is because I’m not entirely convinced by the structural intergrity of that method (surely the ends will just come out? No?).
Look, there were quite a few ends to weave in: 4 for each row of strawberries (2 red, 2 green), but it’s just one of those things. I’m really happy with how neat my finished socks look (and it is super easy to hide the ends in amongst all of the floats!), so I can’t complain!
New Techniques
There were some new techniques to me in this pattern, as well as some opportunities to practise techniques I’ve previously met (as always, previously encountered techniques are marked with an *):
- Provisional cast-on*
- Picot edge
- Folded cuff*
- Stranded colourwork* (but new, two-handed method used for this!).
- Short row heel
- Wedge toe
- Grafting*
Final Thoughts
Overall, even though the fit isn’t perfect, I am in love with these socks: I think they’re SO cute, so fun & summer-y, and I really enjoyed the process of knitting them. I know colourwork isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for me: I really love a colourwork project, and this particular one just flew off my needles.
I really like the contrast picot edge: a picot edge is definitely something I can see myself incorporating into more of my knitted ankle socks in the future (it’s just so fancy and pretty!), but I think that the use of a contrast colour for it here really adds to the effect and makes it pop, particularly when paired with the colourwork elements throughout the rest of the sock!
If I made these socks again, I’d be tempted to use my beloved Shadow Wrap Heel instead of the Short Row Heel, and a Rounded Toe instead of the Wedge Toe, just because I prefer knitting/wearing both of those and I think it might help with the general fit. I’d also be tempted to use a different yarn, to see if that would help too.
If you're interested...
You can purchase the Itty Bitty Berry Socks pattern by Stone Knits on Ravelry here.
You can find the Ravelry project page for my Itty Bitty Berry Socks here.
Gemma
xxx
