Tag / original design

by TechnicolorMom

Chirality Socks

I am so excited to introduce my newest design, Chirality Socks! This pattern has been one of my favorites to design and is so fun to knit up. The pattern is available now on Ravelry.

The Chirality Socks feature a lovely cabled rib pattern that travels from the cuff to the toe and even onto the heel! The cables on each sock twist in opposite directions, making them “chiral,” or non-superimposable mirror images. I loved adding all of these little details onto the socks and figuring out the best way to arrange them. I’ve always wanted a pair of socks that were cabled all over, and the Chirality Socks are the closest I’ve gotten to that so far. I love how these dainty 1-over-3 cables add a beautiful texture to the socks.

For the Chirality Socks, I chose this lovely, very lightly speckled yellow from Teal Torch Knits, called Dose of Sunshine. I used her TTK Sock base, which is probably one of my favorite sock yarns to design with — I feel like Christina’s colorways just “get me” with their brightness, joy, and neon amazingness, so I keep finding myself on her shop again and again to order more skeins.

Designing Challenges

When I’m designing, I like to work in increments of eight so that I can always include my standard sizing: 48 {56, 64, 72, 80} stitches (because I never want anyone to feel left out). The good news is that I can fit a lot of design into eight stitches, but sometimes I end up with something that I want to split, and for my 56- and 72-stitch size socks, this can be extra challenging since they won’t have a full eight-stitch repeat on the front and back of the sock.

I consider it a personal challenge to include all of the elements of the designs in all of the sizes and to make them as symmetric and centered as possible. For the Chirality Socks, this means that I needed to set up the 56- and 72-stitch sizes to have one more cable on the front of the leg than they do on the back of the leg. That way, they get maximum cabling and no interruptions to the cabled rib motif. It took a while for me to solve this problem, but in the end, I think the socks turned out beautifully.

As a result, the 56- and 72-stitch sizes have a slightly different heel flap, where the pickups will proceed as they normally would in one of my slipped-stitch heel flaps. Here is a pair that I made for my daughter in this lovely blue from Adella of Lolabean Yarn Co. This pair was made using her Bean Sprout base in the Chevron Chalet colorway, which was an Eat.Sleep.Knit exclusive from a few years ago.

Picking Up Stitches

The even sizes of the sock (48 sts, 64 sts, and 80 sts) have the cables going all the way to the edge of the heel flap so that everything stays centered. This ended up being slightly different to pick up stitches. I always like to pick up the strand between the slipped-stitch edge and the stitch right next to it. I find that this makes a lovely, clean pick-up edge on both the inside and the outside of the sock, and it avoids gaps or bonus spaces in the pickup.

On a regular slipped-stitch heel flap, the neighboring stitch is always a knit stitch (when viewed from the right side of the sock), but in this case, the neighboring stitch is a purl stitch.

When the pattern was in testing, we realized that for the 48 sts, 64 sts, and 80 sts sizes, unless you pick up your stitches similarly to how I do them, you might end up with a slightly different look at the edge of the heel flap. I recorded a video tutorial to show you how to get this lovely edge that looks great from the outside and the inside of the sock. You can find the video here:

This technique can be applied to any heel flap where there is a slipped stitch edge with a purl stitch right next to it. The technique will also work for when there is a neighboring knit stitch, but it will look slightly different. Are you interested in seeing how I pick up stitches on my regular heel flaps? Let me know!

Appropriate Dye Styles

This design will look fantastic in any fingering weight wool or wool blend yarn in solid, tonal, lightly speckled, heathered, or low-contrast colorways. I would consider both of the colorways above to be *very* lightly speckled, but how does the sock look with some more speckles?!

Personally, I think it looks fantastic! This gorgeous peach colorway is from The Lemonade Shop, and Heather is so talented at getting these teeny tiny individual rainbow speckles onto her skeins. Please forgive that there’s only one sock so far — the other one was the one I used for filming, and it just needs to be finished up, and then I’ll be wearing them all the time!

My lovely test knitters also knit up their socks in a variety of colorways. You can check out this page on Ravelry to see some of their gorgeous photos.

Thanks & Coupon Code

Thank you so much for being here and for reading through my design ramblings. Subscribers can use the code TECHNICOLORMOM to get 50% off of the pattern now through Friday, October 24, 2025. I can’t wait to see your beautiful Chirality Socks!

On the knitting front, I have accumulated an alarming number of single socks (*cough* more than ten *cough*), but I am working away on them and having so much fun. Are you hoping to see any design elements or techniques used in a future sock pattern? Let me know in the comments!

by TechnicolorMom

Alexander Socks!

Y’all! I designed another pair of socks! In 2019 years ago, I reached out on Ravelry to recruit test knitters for my third sock pattern, the Fireside Cable Socks. One of my volunteers, Jordan, knit a lovely pair of socks as she was testing out the pattern before publication. Fast forward to 2022, when I was able to regularly go to my local knitting group for Knit Night. I became fast friends with Jordan, who shares my love of pink, hand-dyed yarn, and all things cables. A long while later, we realized that these two Jordans were the same person! How small is the world that someone I interacted with online three years before ended up being at my Knit Night?!

Jordan is on the receiving end of a lot of my design-related brainstorming, and she is enthusiastic and encouraging as she reads and responds to all of my text messages. I’m so thankful that we had the chance to meet in person! We have spent a lot of time talking about socks and what would be our “perfect” sock design. Jordan really loves when patterns continue onto heel flaps, and we both really love cables.

So, I promised her a design with a fancy heel flap. And here we are! The Alexander Socks, named for my friend Jordan, are for those of us Hamilton fans who will never be satisfied with vanilla socks and want to elevate our socks without a huge commitment to fixing missed cable crosses or having to focus, focus, focus. When incorporating these cables, I used what has become my signature increases and decreases at the starts and ends of the cables so that you don’t have to think too hard about which size to make — just use your vanilla stitch count, and you are good to go. I used Teal Torch Knits TTK Sock in the colorway Tall Drink of Water for my sample, and I love how these light speckles look with the cables.

The Alexander Socks are knit cuff down, beginning with a German Twisted Cast-On and a beautiful cabled cuff. The leg of the sock features a relaxing 3×1 broken rib that continues down the foot of the sock. A cabled heel flap levels up the socks, and a traditional gusset makes for a great overall fit. The broken rib texture flows into the rounded toe for a polished look with a comfortable fit. Kitchener stitch is used to finish off the sock.

I’ve now knit three pairs of these socks — two for myself and a tiny pair for my 4-year old. The great news is that this pattern includes five cast-on sizes: 48 sts, 56 sts, 64 sts, 72 sts, and 80 sts. The 48 sts size is great for little kids with fingering weight yarn, or if you knit them with DK weight yarn, you’ll get a super cozy pair of adult socks. I use the 56 sts size for my 8 year old, and I knit the 64 sts size for myself. I usually use 72 sts for my husband or dad, and the 80 sts size is great for anyone who struggles with foot swelling or needs a looser fit.

I knit these pink socks using Leading Men Fiber Arts Show Stopper in the Pink Lemonade colorway. How amazing is that tonal?! I already have another pair of these on the go for my daughter, and I’ve got several skeins of yarn that would look amazing with these cables. What colorways do you think will look fantastic in these socks? I think this pattern will play nicely with any fingering weight merino/merino nylon blend yarn in solid, tonal, lightly speckled, or low-contrast colorways. I’m thinking Lolabean Yarn Co’s The City So Nice, They Named It Twice colorway would look amazing in this design — I used that colorway for my Concentration Shawl design a couple of years ago.

Are there any design features that you would love to see in a pair of socks? I’m really enjoying the fancy cuffs and heel flaps and of course cables!

by TechnicolorMom

Dragon Fairy Socks

I think it would be accurate to state that I am obsessed with my latest sock pattern. Last week, I published the Dragon Fairy Socks pattern, and I love, love, love knitting these socks. This design features a textured panel on the front of the sock, and the back of the sock is stockinette. When I say these fly off the needles, I am not kidding. I gave a sneak peak of the sock a few weeks ago when I shared the socks I made for my grandmother. I gifted them to my grandmother for her birthday, and she loved them!

The difficulty rating for the Dragon Fairy Socks pattern is EASY. This project is worked in the round from the cuff down and includes an easy textured stitch and decreases. Kitchener stitch is used to finish off the toe.

The pattern has been tech edited and test knit.

DESIGN INSPIRATION

On the way home from school one winter afternoon, as I was finishing up the second sock for this sample, my daughter was arguing that she didn’t feel cold outside because she is a “Fire Fairy.” My 3-yo piped up and declared that he is a “Dragon Fairy,” and I thought the conversation was just the cutest thing. I was struck by how the texture on the front of these socks resembles dragon scales and how the knitted bars highlight individual colors in the fabric like the sun glinting off of iridescent fairy wings. Thus, I decided to call these socks the “Dragon Fairy Socks.” The texture on these socks makes the pattern ideal for any yarn dyeing style, from solid to variegated and anything in between.

RECOMMENDED YARN

This pattern will play nicely with any fingering weight merino/merino nylon blend yarn in solid, tonal, speckled, or variegated colorways.

I used Sock by Teal Torch Knits, a 75% superwash merino wool/25% nylon, 463 yds (423 m) per 3.5 oz (100 g) base. I used Christina’s Cake by the Ocean colorway for my blue/green sample. I love how the texture stitch shows off the variations in this color, and I am loving seeing this texture in yarns that I collected long ago but wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

Below you can see the pattern in Sweet Sock by Twisted Ambitions; I used Russ’s Sweet Like Candy colorway for these beauties, and I love how they turned out. I started these on February 5, 2024 and finished them on February 12, 2024. I always knit the 64 sts size for myself.

It was a little tricky to get the lighting correct for these socks, but the color is probably closest to the cooler photo on the right.

GIFT KNITTING

My children are so incredibly knit worthy, and for Valentine’s Day this year, I made them each a pair of Dragon Fairy Socks using Sequoia Sock by Treehouse Knits. I collected Lauren’s Land of the Living colorway a couple of years ago. I love how well this design shows off the intricacies of this colorway.

This sock set came with two minis, and I used them to add a pop of color at the cuff and a contrast cuff and toe. I used the 56 sts size for my 7 year old’s pair, which I started on January 17, 2024 and finished on January 22, 2024. For my 3.5 year old child, I used the 48 sts size and started them on January 22, 2024 and finished on January 25, 2024.

I have since started three additional pairs of these socks — two for my 7 year old and one for my husband, and I can’t wait to share them when they are finished.

Do you have any collected yarn that has been hiding away, unsure of what it wants to become? What yarn would you use for these socks?