With all the Squishy Feelings Nonsense yesterday, I didn’t actually talk much about the knitting. Let’s fix that! This is a swatch to work out out some sizing for the first of the socks I’m revisiting.

Like I said yesterday, a lot of the earliest patterns only came in one or two sizes, and That’s Not How We Do Things Now. And while sometimes adding more sizes is just a matter of adding an extra stitch repeat, sometimes you have to do something a little more involved.

Here, each and every size requires five different charts. One for the cuff to get the ribbing set up and feed into the stitch pattern. One for the main stitch pattern. Two for the heel because the stitch pattern is 20-24 rows tall, and I want you to be able to end the leg at either the midpoint or the end. And one for the pointy bit.

See what I mean about how I used to just figure out what I wanted to make and didn’t worry about how practical it was to write things up?

Five charts for a sock isn’t all that unusual (especially if you want to do options for things like where to start the heel or if you want something fancy going on at the toe). But usually you can work it out so that you use the same charts for multiple sizes.

When that doesn’t work, you end up with a really long pattern. These five charts take up two pages, so you’ve got two pages of charts for every size. And for this one I’m doing four sizes, so that’s eight pages of charts.

And that’s fine in a pdf! I’ve gotten awfully good at laying things out so that it’s clear which charts are for which size, and I can generally make it so all the charts for a size are together with each other so you only need the page or two for your size. But if you want to do anything printed, you pay for that by the page, so there’s a lot of pressure to keep it short. That can mean fewer sizes or fewer options for variations or simpler patterns.

But, seeing as how this is going to be a pdf, I can go ahead and indulge myself. Because really, sizes are good. Options are good.

The yarn is @sevensistersarts Meridian in Abalone, and wow does it make for a damn fine looking sock!