Over-thought socks

These are some of the most over-thought socks I've ever knitted. Seriously. 

Basically since I started running in my minimalist shoes, my feet have bulked up. The toes have spread out a bit, the big toes straightened up a bit, and I've been finding my normal socks a little restrictive. So then I tried a pair of full toe socks, but they had too much material between the four not-big toes. So, since its my big toe that I really like to wriggle, I thought I'd try these split toe ones. 

I knit my socks from the top down on 4 needles. 64 stitches normally, split 16, 32, 16 over the three needles. I used a heel flap, as I normally do. After the heel I had 31, 32, 31 stitches. Instead of decreasing down the gusset back to 16, I left one extra stitch each side. So 17, 32, 17. Just to give my feet a little extra room. But then I put the ribbing section in, because I didn't want to risk them being loose around the arch. Only a little bit of ribbing though, because I didn't want to tread on the rib section. 

When I got to the toe section, I did the four toe section on both socks first. I left 11 stitches from the bottom needle and 10 stitches from the top needle to make the big toe later, and cast on 4 stitches across the gap (with hindsight, probably should have been 5). The toe decreases normally happen one stitch each side of the end of the needle, and I did that on the top needle. On the bottom needle I moved it in 2 stitches (so on the left foot, 3rd needle, k2, ssk). That was to make the toe box a bit deeper. For the big toe I picked up the 21 stitches I left before, then another 4 across the gap. Knit straight up until it was about long enough, then two rows of k2tog as much as possible.

The benefits of making my own socks. Getting to totally over-think them. 

More socks

I finally got around to finishing the socks I started ages ago!

See, the socks themselves were really straightforward, but those toes got a bit fiddly...

A closer look. A little like gloves, getting the joins between toes without holes was difficult, and I've got to say I cheated a bit by stitching up some of them afterwards when I sewed in the ends. The yarn is Knit Picks Imagination in a colourway called munchkin!

To be honest, although the yarn is beautifully soft there's a really noticeable difference between the two balls. And having worn them today, the fabric is a little thick even for between my toes (which do naturally have gaps between them anyway!). The reviews of the yarn on Ravelry suggest that they will felt really easily, which is a worry. Guess I'll find out! I think I might keep them for lazy winter weekends with slippers. Chalk them up as an interesting experiment, but I probably won't be churning out loads of them!