Gingerbread House Socks
In 2019, I went to the Knit City (a big fibre event) in Vancouver. At the event, I bought two skeins of sock yarn from The Cozy Knitter: Halloween themed one called Haunted and Christmas themed one called Gingerbread House.
I knit up the Halloween pair that year, but somehow I never got around to knit up the Christmas one…until now!
Yarn: Gingerbread House colourway in Bliss base by The Cozy Knitter
Pattern base: Vanilla Sock with Gusset & Choice of Heel by Jo Torr (Toe-up)
Needles: 2.25 mm Addi Rocket Squared
As for the pattern base, I used “Vanilla Sock with Gusset & Choice of Heel by Jo Torr” as usual. I changed the numbers of cast on stitches and increases (including the heel area) to fit my feet but the construction is pretty much the same as the pattern.
Their sock yarn comes with a coordinating solid which was the cream colour for this Gingerbread house colourway!
This colour looks very Christmasy but at the same time, does this remind you of hamburgers? It kind of does for me and I love it!
I made these longer (taller) than my regular socks, so I did a bit of increases near the cuffs.
They turned out so cute, I’m very excited to wear them!
If you’ve read my Halloween socks post, you might remember that the Halloween ones were a bit more snag than I like and the fabric wasn’t feeling super soft on my skin?
Since this “Gingerbread House” and the “Haunted” colourway were the same base, I thought I would make this pair slightly bigger.
I almost always cast on 20 stitches total on the toe, and increase it to 60 stitches for the foot and the leg.
So this time I tried casting on 20 stitches and then increased it to 64 stitches.
Well, they were huge!
I was so puzzled, but went back to my regular 60 stitches which was the same number as I did for the Halloween socks.
But my Christmas sock was still knitting up bigger than the Halloween pair.
Why?
The only possibility that I could think of was that I used a different type of needles.
I used to use 2.25 mm Addi Turbo Rocket to make my socks, but recently I switched to 2.25 mm Addi Rocket Squared.
Both are from Addi, and they’re both circular, same size, and made with metal.
But the Addi Rocket Squared are slightly textured and squared for ergonomic comfort which is why I made the switch and I love them for that reason.
However, I think that the comfort helped my hands and wrists to relax more while knitting (that’s a good thing!), and that resulted in looser tension.
My Gingerbread House socks turned out to be less snag than the Haunted pair, and they feel softer on my skin.
I’m really happy with that part as I prefer looser fitting than snag. But the fabric (each stitches) looks just a tad too loose than I like (I know, I’m being super picky here).
So now I’ve been swatching some sock yarns on a different needles and sizes to determine which fabric I like the best!
I’ll do a blog post on my sock yarn gauge swatching journey soon. Knitting/crochet gauge is truly a mystery sometimes.
Anyway, I love these socks! I’m actually happy that they came out slightly bigger—they’ll be perfect when I want to wear them over a pair of tights!
Dec 12, 2021
