Cold Feet – or: The Art of Knitting

Knitted with love – warm socks for my mum, March 2017

It is a well-known fact that most women suffer from cold feet, at least in winter. (If you weren´t aware of this fact you´re probably a (single) man or a very lucky woman indeed. 😉 )

As soon as it´s 35 degrees C in the shade, the problem somehow dissolves into thin, or rather warm air. 😉

One way to overcome the problem of the cold feet is to emigrate to Australia or any other country providing a tad more than a temperate climate – and believe me, I would love to! The other way, however, is a little bit cheaper. 😉

I´m talking, as you have surely deduced by now from the picture above, about socks.

When it comes to these little woolen life-savers, I´m quite fussy – I simply can´t stand it when the cuff is too tight and consequently throttling my blood supply and thus making my feet go even more cold.

Of course I could buy some nice socks in a shop, always hoping to make the right choice and pick the ones that are just right. There is, however, another solution to this and I have dedicated the last three months to it.

I´m talking about knitting your own socks.

carpet slippers, yet to be felted, April 2017

Having knitted never anything else apart from scarfs, and since the last year, wollen hats and beanies, I decided to tackle the mystery of the handknitted sock the modern way – meaning, I watched a Youtube video 😉

And to my surprise it didn’t seem to be as difficult as I´ve always imagined it to be. On the contrary, as soon as I was finished jotting down the instructions I´ve absorbed by  watching the video, I began knitting my first pair of socks.

This pair proved to be as warm as I´ve hoped for, but alas – it quite lacked an aesthetic appeal 😉 They are dark gray in color (which is not at all a bad thing) but somehow seem to grow larger and larger with each wearing! That doesn’t stop me from wearing them of course, I just need to wear another pair of socks underneath to provide enough friction/adhesion for them not to fall off my feet.

carpet slippers, felted and adorned with flower-shaped buttons, April 2017

The next pair I knitted already improved, and when I showed them off to my mum who came over for a visit, she instantly decided that she wanted just the same!

Always happy to be of service, I got out my knitting needles and started knitting her socks the minute after she left. This time, I thought of making a picture of them before they were worn and it´s the picture you saw at the beginning of this post. Is it needl(el)ess 😉 to write at this point that I´m now busy knitting the counterpart socks (meaning the cuff, heel and tip in gray and the rest in salmon pink)? Maybe, but I´m doing it anyway 😉

Here´s the link to the Youtube video (it´s actually 3 but I only give you the link to the first part, the other ones should follow the video automatically) that helped me learn how to knit socks – it is admittedly in German, but since the language of knitting is universal and you need to see more than hear how it is done anyway, it will suffice. 😉

Also the teacher in this video does it r e a l l y slowly which helps enormously.

 

And now to the knitted carpet slippers that are also shown here. They are even easier to make than socks because you don´t need to knit the heel!

All you need to do is by some special kind of wool that can be used for felting (should be noted on the label). Felting means in this case that the piece you have knitted is afterwards washed in the washing machine at 40 degrees C (do not use the wool program! Only the normal one you use for multi-colored wash. It´s also advisable to add a pair of old jeans or an old towel to the slippers to help the felting process.). The main thing that needs paying attention to is the shrinkage from about 30 – 40% (my slippers shrank from 36 cm to 23/24 cm). This means you have to knit more than your feet actually measure. There are many lists to be easily found about this subject on the internet. In general you will need approximately 200 g of virgin wool for a pair of slippers.

I don´t have a video for you in this case though, because I used a book I borrowed from a friend. But I´m sure if you google “knitting/felting slippers” you will easily find the right page/blog/video for you to use.

And while you´re at it, have a look at my friend´s blog “Knitting with Heart“! Jackie knits the cutest hearts and shamrocks! 🙂

Do you knit? How did you learn it? Do you have any favorite knitting subject or pattern? Have you been gifted with something knitted that you can not stand at all and that you have to wear when the one who gifted you with it is coming around? 😉 I look forward to read all about your stories! 🙂