Iceberg Socks - Intarsia in the Round

When I entered the sock KAL in the Facebook-Group "Die drei vom Blog - Knit Along" I thought long and hard about what to knit. As a rule I prefer not to use patterns, but to knit something I made up myself. Plus I wanted to do something new. I.e. I wanted to try out a new technique. So I decided on trying out intarsia in the round.

Here's the first project I finished in this technique. The edges between the two colors are not quite as neat as they might be, but since it's a first try, I'm quite happy with it.

As with some of my other sock patterns, this is NOT A COMPLETE PATTERN with stitch counts and everything, but only a sketch. It is assumed that you know how to knit socks to fit your feet.


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




Materials

• about 60 grams of fingering weight yarn in two colors in equal amounts - I used one yarn in a solid color (dark blue) and another with a color gradient (light blue to off-white)
• 2.5 mm needles - I used 80 cm circulars and the magic loop method
• scrap yarn for the afterthought heel
• a tapestry needle to weave in ends

Techniques

• Toe up sock knitting: as explained on dummies.com or in this video by Girly Knits 
• Afterthought heel: Here's a tutorial in three videos by Knit Purl Hunter. Alternatively, you can do any kind of short row heel.
• 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.

Instructions
Knit your toe and then divide the stitches into two equal parts - front and back - and place a marker between the two halves. Start to knit the intarsia pattern. The chart below shows only the stitches that are knitted in the contrast color xxx . It also shows only the lower right quarter of the stitches. The pattern is mirrored at the stitch marker. This means e.g. in row 1 that after knitting 1 stitch in CC before the stitch marker and 1 stitch in CC after it - or in row 15 that you knit 6 stitches in CC before the marker and 6 stitches in CC after the marker.
Furthermore after knitting it once, it is repeated in opposite order (i.e. you start with row 26 end with row 1 - also mirrored around the marker).

Chart - click to enlarge

I inserted the scrap yarn for the afterthought heel just after finishing the second half of the intarsia pattern. If you need your socks shorter, leave out some of the upper rows (e.g. rows 24 and 23), but I'd suggest to knit rows 25 and 26 to have two full rows of the contrast color.

I used the colors as follows:

• Sock 1: start with C1 as main color, then include C2 as contrast color for the first half of intarsia pattern - for the second half of intarsia pattern, switch the colors, i.e. C2 becomes main color and C1 the contrast color. Finish the sock in C2 and also knit the afterthought heel in C2.
• Sock 2: completely reversed to sock 1: start with C2 as main color, then add C1 as contrast color for the first half of intarsia pattern - for the second half of intarsia pattern, switch the colors, i.e. C1 becomes main color and C2 the contrast color. Finish sock in C1 and also knit the afterthought heel in C1.