Knitting and so on: Alignment Socks

Have you ever bought a few beautiful mini-skeins at a yarn festival ... and afterwards kept them for quite a while because you didn't actually know what to do with them because there was not enough yarn for a complete project, but they were too beautiful to use up for a scrap project? Well, in 2015 I bought 5 lovely little skeins dyed by Frau Wo aus Po at Wollefestival in Cologne. Each skein weighed about 25 grams - not enough for a pair of fingerless gloves or let alone socks.
Then - while participating in a sock knitting KAL - I learned how to do intarsia in the round (see this blogpost to see my first intarsia sock) and I knew that this was a way to incorporate one of these mini-skeins into bigger project without resorting to stripes.

The Alignment Socks are knitted toe-up with a short row heel. The pattern is written in a way that you can adapt it to your foot size - even in a way that you don't have to knit a swatch.

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

Materials

about 50 to 60 grams of fingering weight yarn in main color (MC) - the yarn I used is Schoppel Wolle Admiral cat print (colorway 2156) ... you will need a bit more yarn if you prefer your sock cuffs longer
about 10 grams of fingering weight yarn in contrast color (CC)
2.5 mm needles - I used long circulars and the magic loop methods, but dpns work as well
stitch markers
a tapestry needle to weave in ends

Techniques

Judy's Magic Cast-On is a technique that gives you live stitches on both sides of your needle - it is generally used for toe-up socks (e.g. in this pattern), but it can be used for other purposes as well. Here's a written description (from Knitty) and here's a YouTube-video by Cat Bordhi and another YouTube-video by Very Pink Knits.
Intarsia in the round: When I searched on the internet, I found two methods to do intersia in the rounds - for these socks I used the second method, but I think that the first one is ingenious and will even give you better edges between the colors. I will definitely try it out on another project

with crossing yarns at both ends: as shown in this YouTube video by Sheep to Shawl Knitting Studio & Store Vermont
with yarn-overs before turning: as shown in this YouTube video by Julia farwell-clay.
I used the method from this video. Basically you knit back and forth even though your stitches are arranged in the round - and you have to consider rounds in pairs - one RS row and one WS row. You start with your main color (MC) on the RS, then - as in normal intarsia you change (by twisting the yarns) - to contrast color (CC) and knit your CC part, After finishing this you turn your work, make a yarn-over and do the WS with CC, when you get to the MC part you change back as in normal (flat) intarsia to MC.
Now with MC you work your way on the WS not only to the start of the round, but further to the point where you ended the CC part. Here you p2tog the last MC stitch with the yarn over in CC. Then you turn - again with a yarn over - and do the RS part to the beginning of the round. That's the two round finished.
When - during the next pair of rounds - you reach the new yarn over on the RS, you have to do an ssk of the last stitch in CC with the yarn over in MC.

Cutting a sock template of your feet: To make the finished piece fit your feet, it is useful to measure your feet and to cut out a card template. Here's a blogpost at knitbettersocks.blogspot.com that explains the idea. If you want to knit a pair for someone else and cannot get a template, here are standard shoe size templates.
Shadow Wrap Short Rows: as shown in this YouTube video by Lee Meredith. A video by Miriam Felton that shows how to do a heel with shadow wraps can be found here on YouTube. However, the heel knitted here is knitted slightly different because here there are two rounds between the two parts of the heel, i.e. there won't be any triple stitches.

Placement of the Intarsia Rectangles

It's always a good idea to place something according to the Rule of Thirds. That's why I wanted to place the CC rectangles around a line that is one third from the side of the sock (see picture below).
Here's a short table that shows the place and size of the intarsia rectangles for stitch numbers between 56 and 64. Please note, that the shoe size is only a rough guide - I looked it up in a table that was freely available on the internet.

Shoe size	Total no. of sts	No. of front sts	Width of intarsia block	Start of intarsia block (1st sock)	Start of intarsia block (2nd sock)
32-35	56	28	9 sts	after 14th st on front	after 5 th stitch on front
36-38	60	30	10 sts	after 15th st on front	after 5 th st on front
40-43	64	32	11 sts	after 16th st on front	after 5 th st on front

Here's how you calculate the placement in general: For both socks, the width of the intarsia block is 3rd of the width of the front part (or on sixth of the total number of stitches). For the first sock, the intarsia block starts right in the middle of the front half of your sock. For the second sock, the intarsia block ends right in the middle, i.e. you need to start after one sixth of the number of the front stitches (or one twelvth of the total number of stitches). See picture below.

Placement of CC intarsia blocks - click to enlarge

Instructions

Toe

With the magic CO cast on 2x12 stitches

To get a rounded toe, my usual toe is:

4 x increases in every row
2 x increases in every 2nd row
2 x increases in every 3rd row
then increases every 4th row ... until wide enough

This means:

Round 1: Knit all - while placing stitch markers after 12 sts and at the end of the round - alternatively divide the stitches on your needles in such a way that you know exacly where one half of your stitches are.

Round 2 (increase round): * k1, kfb, k to one before marker, kfb, k1, slip marker repeat from *

Rounds 3 to 5 = increase rounds

Round 6 (neutral round): k all

Round 7 = increase round
Round 8 = neutral round
Round 9 = increase round
Rounds 10 to 11 = neutral round
Round 12 = increase round
Rounds 13 to 14 = neutral round
Round 15 = increase round
Rounds 16 to 18 = neutral round
Round 19 = increase round
Repeat rounds 16 to 19 until the sock is wide enough.

Remove the marker that marks the middle of the round, but leave the one that marks the beginning of the round.

Foot

The foot is knitted party in the round (when knitting plain rounds in MC), and partly back and forth (when knitting intarsia).

Round 1 and 2:
- outside, MC: k to starting of intarsia block; change to CC
- outside CC: knit width of intarsia block sts, turn work
- inside CC: yo, purl width of intarsia block , change to MC
- inside MC: p to beginning of round, without turning, go one purling to 1 st bef yo in CC, p2tog (i.e. you purl together the last stitch in MC and the yo in CC - connecting the two), turn work
- outside MC: yo, k to beginning of round

Round 3 and 4:
- outside, MC: k to starting of intarsia block; change to CC
- outside CC: knit one st less than width of intarsia block (or 1 st bef yo in MC), ssk, (i.e. you have connected the last st in CC with the yo in MC); turn work
- inside CC: yo, purl width of intarsia block, change to MC
- inside MC: p to beginning of round, without turning, go on purling to 1 st bef yo in CC, p2tog (i.e. you purl together the last stitch in MC and the yo in CC - connecting the two), turn work
- outside MC: yo, k to beginning of round

Rounds 5 to 8 are all knitted on the outside in MC only

Round 5:
- outside MC: k to start of intarsia block and twist MC and CC yarn to avoid hole, continue to k in MC to 1 sts bef end of intarsia block, ssk (i.e. connect last sts in CC with the yo in MC), k to end
Rounds 6 to 8: in MC k all

Rounds 9 to 12 = Rounds 1 to 4

Repeat rounds 5 to 12 to desired length just before the heel. If you made a template as suggested above, your sock should reach to the ankle bone line. Start with the heel.

Heel

Divide your stitches into two equal parts - front and back or instep and sole. The short rows will worked back and forth - only be worked over the sole part, i.e. the half without the intarsia rectangles. The heel is knitted in MC only.

First Part
Row 1 (outside): k to 1 bef last, knit into the mother stitch of the last st (shadow wrap), turn
Row 2 (inside): slip shadow wrap st, p to 1 bef last, purl into the mother stitch, turn
Row 3 (outside): slip shadow wrap, k to 1 bef last shadow wrap, knit into the mother stitch of the last st (shadow wrap), turn
Row 4 (inside): slip shadow wrap, p to 1 bef last shadow wrap, purl into the mother stitch, turn
Repeat rows 3 and 4 until the row length is reduced to one third, i.e. 1/3 shadow wrap stitches on one side, 1/3 normal stitches and 1/3 shadow wrap stitches on the other side

Knit two rounds - making sure to knit the double stitches that result from the shadow wraps as one stitch.

Second Part
Row 1 (outside): k two thirds of the sts of the back of the sock, k into the mother stitch of the last st (shadow wrap), turn
Row 2 (inside): slip shadow wrap st, p to one third of back of sock, purl into the mother stitch, turn
Row 3 (outside): slip shadow wrap, k up to and including last shadow wrap stitch, knit into the mother stitch of the last st (shadow wrap), turn
Row 4 (inside): slip shadow wrap, p up to and including last shadow wrap stitch, purl into the mother stitch, turn
Repeat rows 3 and 4 until the row length is the complete back of the sock.

Knit two rounds - making sure to knit the double stitches that result from the shadow wraps as one stitch.

On the front of the sock, you can see that you have knitted 4 complete rounds in MC. That means that when continuing the cuff, you have to start with an intarsia block again.

Cuff
Knit rounds 1 to 8 of intarsia pattern of the foot until desired length.
Finish with 12 rows of k2-p2-ribbing and bind off loosely in pattern. Weave in ends.

When knitting the second sock, make sure to start the intarsia block mirrored to the first sock - as described in the table above.