There are some things you really should be warned about before attending a fibre retreat…

You might accidentally buy more wool that is of course “absolutely essential“.

And that you might catch a lurgy, in this instance, the sock knitting lurgy.

I caught the infection at the Auckland Creative Fibre retreat in June where Kylie was the source, spreading it to all who came near enough, enticing the weak with the beautiful stripy colours of her sock tubes. Who could resist?!! Not me apparently 😉

Kylie is, amongst other things, an engineer. This is perhaps why she is particularly well qualified to be called the Sock Engineer. Socks, after all, are basically engineering for your feet. There are calculations, shaping, structural integrity and an alarming number of opportunities for things to go wrong.

I don’t really consider myself to be a knitter, my knitting skills only extend as far as making 10 x 10cm swatches of handspun samples of the fibres I have for sale. Socks were firmly in the category of things other people make. They look complicated. There were tiny needles. There were mysterious heels. And then there were toes, which appeared to involve some sort of knitting magic that I had no intention of attempting.

Then along came Kylie (very ably assisted by Tracy and Cher).

The inoculation

At the retreat, Kylie taught us how to make the bits of a sock that had always seemed particularly mysterious to me — toes and especially the heels!

There was tea accompanied by some very nice home-baking.

There was laughter and some tongue-poking moments of intense concentration.

There was knitting and picking up dropped stitches.

There was more tea and of course, some wine (and possibly some gin but what happens at retreat stays at retreat 😉 ).

And gradually the whole thing started to make sense. Or was that just the alcohol tricking me into thinking it made sense?

The heel was no longer an incomprehensible bit of knitted origami, and the toe actually began to look like a toe rather than some sort of woolly lopsided geological formation.

Of course, once you realise you can make one sock, you immediately start thinking about making another one. A single sock would be lonely on its todd, wouldn’t it?

This is how the lurgy spreads.

By the end of the retreat, several of us were thoroughly infected. We had become sock knitters.

We were no longer to be trusted around sock yarn.

And now I can’t stop

Since the retreat I’ve been dying sock yarn, spinning fibre to make socks, handing said yarn to Kylie who, like any good drug dealer, returns it knitted into gorgeous tubes, long enough to make a pair of knee-high socks. By the time you read this I will be travelling around South America with a small pile of yarn and sock tubes (and hopefully some new socks!) in tow. Fingers crossed the border control police don’t realise I have a stash of highly addictive substances in my bag…

The Great Cuff Problem

There is, however, one small problem.

I have not yet managed to find a cuff that I am really happy with.

I’ve been knitting 2 x 2 rib, which is lovely and stretchy while I’m knitting it. Unfortunately, when it comes to binding off, my cuff seems to develop a sudden and rather alarming case of commitment issues.

It simply refuses to stretch enough to get comfortably over my heel.

I tried the “loop over” between each stitch when binding off for sock number 2, which has helped, but I can’t help feeling there is a more professional looking bind off…

And this is where I am hoping that the collective wisdom of this beautiful community might come to my rescue!

How do you finish your sock cuffs?

Do you have a particular stretchy bind-off that you swear by? Do you use a different rib? Is there a magical technique that every sock knitter knows except me?

Please share your favourite methods in the comments — preferably before I knit another twelve pairs of socks with cuffs that won’t go over my heels!

In the meantime, I shall continue knitting socks.

There are worse addictions and this one is eminently more portable than wet felting.

Time for another glass of vino and a couple more rows…