How to think outside the square - modifying patterns to suit...

Posted by Hilary Butler. on 11th Oct 2010

This pattern was also too short for my foot, as my ball of foot is a 3D, but that was no problem, because I suspected it would be too small, so did the first one with spare wool knowing that I have a broader foot than normal.

To make the sock longer, I didn't add more sticked. I took the idea for the heel (mitre number eight), and converted that into a toe. Instead of decreasing until 11 stitches, I decreased until 21 stitches, and picked up four either side, and continued, which created a round toe, and gave the extra length. On another pair I decreased until 17, and picked up six on either side, which gave another half inch.

So that is the way I've varied the length of this sock, and I think the results looked better than a square toe, and will wear better as well.

The other problem I had with the pattern because I didn't do more than 29 stitches to the mitre, was in the picking up of the mitres at the front and the back of the ankle. If your ankle is slightly bigger, with 29 stitches there is a tendency for there to be a "hole" front and back. I resolved that by adding two extra pick up stitches at the bottom V of the mitre, and knitting it as a 31 stitch mitre, and following that through on the side mitres, which also gave just that much more room to get your foot into it without fighting the sock "neck".

It was a very easy pattern to adjust. But these slippers will only be for show, since in terms of wearability they lack the practicality of Anna Zillborg's socks where the sole can simply be removed and reknitted without having to reknit the whole thing, or waste what isn't worn through.

I enjoyed doing this, and it stretched my brain.

I would do it again as a fun gift.