Dudleyspinner Tie Dye Roving Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza 2014 Lacy Sock Class

Lace, the word makes me think of wedding dresses and doilies. Both beautiful but very different. Wedding dresses usually have very fine lace that is machine made most often in this century. Doilies are more often knit or crocheted. I have made a few doilies, one very complicated and a few others more random and free form. 

Knitting lacy socks is very nice because you are knitting in the round. That means that you will  have less purling in most patterns. This pattern has 4 rows and only one is purled. Purling gives the lace the nice texture, showing off the undulation made by the increase/decrease row.
Lace is made by making holes in your knitting intentionally. I am sure we have all made extra holes in our knitting without intending to. An extra wrap of yarn or a dropped stitch will leave a hole, a dropped stitch a ladder of holes, unless it is caught in time and reknit. Making lace is just doing the same thing on purpose. This lace pattern has 6 increases and 6 decreases to keep an even number of stitches.

The pattern we are using for the Lacy Sock Class at the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza  is a very simple Feather and Fan pattern adapted to a sock pattern. This is a top down sock with a very nice ribbing. A 3x1 rib is very stretchy, so a stretchy cast on is needed. This tutorial gives instruction on how to do a Stretchy Cast on    I have been doing a cast on very similar to this, I just add a  double twist to the loop before picking up the yarn. This makes a great stretchy edge for your socks. If you have thick muscular  calves from spinning like I do, the extra stretch makes sure the sock will fit comfortably without cutting off circulation in your leg. Another advantage of this cast on is the fact that you start with a slip knot and work with the ball end of the yarn, so you will always have enough yarn for the cast on. Sometimes with a long tail cast on you will run out of your long tail, or have a lot of extra wasted yarn left over. This eliminates that problem.