Sideways Yoga Socks

I love to knit yoga socks … they are comfy to wear and can even be used to warm the feet a bit in summer ... when you tend to have cold feet, but still want the feeling walking barefoot (sort of).

As a challenge to myself, I wanted to knit them flat, but without cutting the yarn while knitting one socks. This pattern is what I came up with. 

So if you don't like to knit in the round, this pattern is for you :)

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.





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Materials

• about 25 grams of fingering weight yarn
• 3 knitting needles (3mm), it’s best to use double pointed needles (e.g. one circular and one straight needle)
• a tapestry needle for grafting and to weave in ends
• scrap yarn for crochet provisional CO
• a crochet hook for crochet provisional CO

Techniques

• Provisional Cast-On: My preferred method of a provisional cast-on is the crochet provisional CO – as shown in this YouTube Video
• Grafting: Joni Coniglio has written a series on grafting (“5 Grafting Myths”) on the knitting daily blog. All her post can be found here: http://www.knittingdaily.com/author/joni-coniglio/  ).
  The techniques used here, can be found in this blog post.

Gauge and What to Measure
Before starting to knit measure the circumference of your ankles. You will be asked to knit until you have reached half of that circumference.

As to the width of your stitches, I had 13 stitches to 5 cm. However, this is one of the cases where knitting a swatch is actually more work than casting on “normally” and ripping back after a few rows if the piece is too wide or too narrow.

General Construction

The piece that you knit looks a bit like a Tetris piece ... however, you'll never see it flat and complete, because one edge is grafted to another before the piece is finished.

The picture below shows the general construction. You start with half of the intended lenght of the sock (for me this was about 7.5 cm - or 18 stitches for the first provisional CO).
Then you knit half of the sock's circumference in horizontal ribs and afterwards provisionally CO the other half of the intended stitches. The part that is knitted next is used to cover the back of the foot and the front part of your ankles (wide part in the middle).
When this is finished, the first provisional CO is grafted to the upper stitches creating the first tube of your sock.
Then you continue in another narrow strip of horizontal ribs and finish with a second graft to complete the second part of the tube.

The photo below shows how the finished socks look when they are lying flat.



Instructions

With scrap yarn provisionally CO 18 sts

Row 0: k all stitches, but leave a tail long enough to graft your stitches (one meter is more than enough)

Row 1 (RS): sl1 p-wise, p to end
Row 2 (WS): sl1 k-wise, p to end
Row 3 (RS): sl1 k-wise, k to end
Row 4 (WS): sl1 p-wise, k to end

Repeat rows 1 to 4 until the piece is as high as half of your ankle circumference. End with a row 4. Count the number of pattern repeats you have knitted, this number will be called A.
Note: since this pattern is very stretchy, I’d recommend stretching the piece while measuring it.

With a second piece of scrap yarn and another needle, provisionally CO 18 stitches. Then continue knitting row 4 over the 18 newly cast-on stitches (see pictures 1 and 2).

Continue knitting rows 1 to 4 A times, i.e. the same amount of times you knitted it during the narrow part in the beginning, but end with row 2 of the last repeat.

Now it’s time for the first graft. Slip your working needle to the side without your working yarn. This will be your front needle.

Capture the stitches from the first provisional CO on a needle – this will be your back needle (see pictures 3 and 4). Fold the piece right side out.
With the tail of yarn you left in the beginning start grafting as follows (this is called "Garter stitch grafting (purl ridge row on the front needle and knit valley row on the back needle)"in Joni Coniglio's blog post cited in the Techniques section):

• First stitch: on front needle k-wise through, leave stitch on needles; on back needle k-wise through, leave stitch on needles
• Than repeat: Front needle: p-wise through first stitch on needle, slip it off; k-wise through next stitch, leave it on
• Back needle: p-wise through first stitch on needle, slip it off; k-wise through next stitch, leave it on

Repeat until all stitches on back needle are grafted. There should be 18 stitches left on the working needle.

Slip the remaining stitches back to the other end of the needle (where your working yarn is) and continue with rows 3 and 4 of the pattern.

Now continue repeats of rows 1 to 4 – one time less than A. Knit rows 1 and 2 and start with the second graft.

Capture the stitches of the 2nd provisional CO on a needle – this will be your back needle. Fold piece right sides out. Cut yarn but leave a tail long enough to complete the graft as follows (this is called "Garter stitch grafting (knit valley row on the front needle and purl ridge row on the back needle)" in Joni Coniglio's blog post cited in the Techniques section):

• First stitch: on front needle p-wise through, leave stitch on needles; on back needle p-wise through, leave stitch on needles
• Than repeat: Front needle: k-wise through first stitch on needle, slip it off; p-wise through next stitch, leave it on
• Back needle: k-wise through first stitch on needle, slip it off; p-wise through next stitch, leave it on

Weave in ends. Make two.