A Quick Toe-Up Sock Calculator

Have you ever wanted to knit plain socks for yourself or someone in your family but you aren’t sure how to get started with the math?

Henriette at Eddie’s Room has designed a super sock calculator that does all the math for you to work a toe-up sock in just about any size using Judy’s Magic Cast On.

Just change the sizing in the first box and the numbers throughout the post will update, showing you how many stitches to cast on, when to start the heel turn and how to do it. If you have a shorter foot, or a wider foot or whatever, you can change those measurements or just use the standard measures if you’re knitting for someone whose foot isn’t available for measuring.

Of course you still need to check your gauge with the yarn you are using, as the calculator assumes 26 stitches per 4 inches, or 6.5 stitches per inch. If you’re getting something different you can change the number on the form and it will recalculate for you. Easy peasy.

Have you ever used an online knitting pattern calculator before? I’d love to hear how it worked for you (and Henriette is looking for testers for the adult sizes on her calculator, so if you try it out please let her know).

[Photo via Eddie’s Room.]

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I don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

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