How to knit
A Basic Sock
TUTORIAL: How to KNIT SOCKS
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[Music]
hey guys i'm kristen also known as
mullenvine here on my youtube channel
and today i am going to show you how i
knit
my socks believe it or not i get so many
messages from viewers asking me to do a
sock tutorial because
they find them intimidating or scary or
horrifying i'm here to tell you that
socks are probably the most easy thing
you will ever learn to knit i can't
promise that you're going to get it on
the first try but again
practice makes perfect it probably took
me about
two socks until it finally clicked and i
was
off be patient with yourself i'm going
to break this tutorial down into eight
easy steps
which i know eight sounds like a lot of
steps but trust me they're very short
very quick
and all of those eight steps combined
they'll just go by in a flash
so we're gonna start out with the the
cuff which is a one by one rib
then we're going to knit the leg which
is pure stockinette in the round and
then we're gonna knit
a reinforced heel flap which again
sounds really difficult but it's stupid
simple and then we're going to learn
about the magic and wonder of heel
turning because guys
trust me this is pure magic your mind
will be blown when i turned to my first
heel i was like
holy cow this is incredible let me knit
all the socks now
and then we're going to create our
instep or gussets and then we're
back to knitting in the round for the
foot and then we get to start decreasing
the toe
and then stitch her up so again i'm
going to show you how to do the
the kitchener stitch and again it's a
little bit of a process but
so easy once you get the swing of it so
without further ado
let's get started
what you will need to knit a pair of
socks are obviously a
skein of your favorite sock yarn or
fingering weight yarn
uh i'm using my hand-eyed yarn valentine
yarns on my footsie base which is
a lovely blend of blue face luster and
nylon
since socks get a lot of wear and tear i
like this yarn because it's nice and
sturdy and durable
and will last a long time i will also be
knitting my socks on
us 1.5 knitting needles uh in
millimeters that is 2.5 millimeters
and yes i am going to be using a set of
circulars to knit my socks magic loop
because that is how i prefer to knit my
socks uh if you are not familiar with
the magic loop method
i will link to a tutorial down below but
you can certainly follow along
with double pointed needles if you're
more comfortable knitting with double
pointed needles knitting socks in the
round is the same concept as knitting
anything in the round so
feel free to follow along with that as
well
and these circulars have a 16 inch cord
but i would recommend a circular needle
of
24 inches to 32 inches uh
it'll just give you some more slack when
you're shifting your stitches around
all right let's cast on our stitches i
like to use a long tail cast on method
however you can also use a
german twisted cast on i would not
recommend a knitted cast
on or anything non-stretchy if you're
knitting your socks cuffed down you want
to have
a relatively stretchy
cuff when i knit socks for myself i cast
on 64 stitches which happens to be a
adult medium and when i cast on a pair
of socks for dennis my husband i go
for a 72 stitch cast on and anyone that
has a smaller foot
than i do i go for a 56 stitch cast on
these are standard cast on sizes for
socks again as with most patterns this
is where a gauge comes into play
and you're going to want to knit a gauge
swatch to figure out your gauge when it
comes to knitting any sock pattern
but i will say the more socks that you
knit you'll get a better idea of
what your standard go-to cast on will be
if that makes sense
so i'm gonna finish casting on my
stitches which again is going to be 64
and then i'm going to separate my
stitches and set it up for magic loop
knitting
now i have all of my stitches cast on 64
stitches and
since i'm knitting magic loop i have 32
stitches on one needle
and 32 stitches on the other needle and
i'm going to make sure that none of my
stitches are twisted
because you always want to make sure
your stitches are not twisted before
knitting in the round because i can't
tell you how many times
i've cast on something in the round and
my stitches were
twisted for the first two stitches to
prevent any gaps at the
cuff i like to knit the first stitch
together
with the tail and the working yarn so
none of my stitches are twisted and the
first stitch is knit
and i'm just going to knit another
stitch
so now i'm going to break my yarn tail
and just kind of draw it through the
middle of the loop just to get that out
of the way
for my cuff i'm going to knit a 2x2 rib
however you can also do a one by one rib
you can even do one and knit through the
back loop
rib whatever you decide again you want
your cuff to be elastic and have a nice
stretch to it
so i don't usually knit anything over
uh knit two purl two and the first row
is always going to be a little wonky and
fiddly but once you get it going
it's pretty smooth sailing so i knit two
purl two all the way around
all right now i'm ready to work the
other side of my knitting needles for
magic
loop and for that first stitch i'm just
going to give it a nice
little tug and this this applies to
knitting with dpns as well whenever you
come to the end
of a need of knitting stitches off one
needle
you're going to want to give that first
stitch on the next needle a nice little
tug to prevent any laddering from
happening
you can knit these as long or as short
as you want
but for my socks i usually knit about 15
to 20 rounds
for the ribbing so pause the video
finish knitting your cuff and come back
when you're ready to knit the leg
[Music]
behold a cuff has emerged if you've come
this far congrats
again i knit 15 rounds you can knit 20
rounds whatever whatever your preference
is
i knit 15 and this measures about a
little over an inch i'm gonna say like
an inch and a half
so now we are ready to move on to the
leg
which is pretty much smooth sailing so
i'm going to pull out my needle from
behind
shift my stitches and at this point your
knitting should be a little less fiddly
especially if you're working with double
pointed needles because you have some
fabric to work with and hold on to and
kind of you know
get a little bit of a grip on your work
if that makes sense so
now for the cuff if you're knitting a
basic plain vanilla sock whenever i say
vanilla sock that usually throws people
off they're like is does it smell like
vanilla
no no vanilla means your basic average
plain
sock so for this part for the leg i am
just going to knit
plain stockinette in the round for the
leg
this really comes down to personal
preference believe it or not i don't
like my
sock legs to be too long i usually knit
my sock legs until they measure about
i want to say six inches from the cast
on edge but again it comes down to
personal preference so
go ahead and knit your sock legs as long
as your heart desires
and from here on out you can just go on
autopilot pop on some netflix
a podcast a youtube video an audio book
and just have at it feel free to pause
this video
and continue knitting your sock leg and
when you're happy with the length come
back and we shall knit
the heel
and welcome back all right now that we
have knit our heel cuff
our leg we are ready to start knitting
the heel
and for my basic go-to sock recipe i
enjoy knitting a
traditional reinforced heel flap and
heel turn but at this point you can
insert whatever heel
your heart desires so there's the fish
lips kiss heel
there's the afterthought heel there's
the
german short row heel there are so many
heels so have at it whatever heel
you want to try go for it at this point
but for this tutorial i'm going to show
you how i do
a reinforced heel flap along with a
heel turn and my friends it is
practically magic so once i'm done
knitting the last round of the leg
you want to make sure that your stitches
are divided evenly so once again i have
32 stitches on one needle and 32
stitches on the other needle
and we're going to take a break from
knitting in the round for just a hot
second and
work flat along these 32 stitches so
we're going to work one row
flip our work knit the other row on the
wrong side flip our work and work
another row on the right side
you get the idea so let's let's get
started
so for this if you want to knit a plain
stockinette heel flap you
certainly can but i like a reinforced
heel plot because as the name suggests
a knitted reinforced heel has a thicker
fabric to it so it's going to last a lot
longer than
a simple stockinette heel flap so to get
started you're going to
slip the first stitch as if to purl and
then you're going to knit the next
stitch
slip the next stitch as it to purl knit
the next stitch
slip the next stitch as if to purl knit
the next stitch and just continue
doing that for the rest of the 32
stitches on your needle
and if you're working with dpns uh just
adjust
the stitch count on your dpn so that one
needle
has 32 stitches and the rest of your
stitches are divided evenly
along your other other dpns knit
slip and end on a knit all right
so now that we've worked the right side
of the heel flap we're going to flip our
work to the wrong side
so again holding the yarn in front of
your work you're just going to
slip the first stitch as if to purl and
then
purl that row yes you heard correct just
simply purl all those 32 stitches until
you get to the end purl and
purling the last stitch there we go and
those are the only two rows you need to
know to work the reinforced heel flap so
now that we've finished row two on the
wrong side we're gonna flip our work
again
and continue knitting row one
and repeat the last right side row once
again you're just going to slip that
first stitch as if to purl
knit the next stitch slip the next
stitch
knit the next stitch slip the next
stitch
knit the next stitch slip the next
stitch and
we're going to keep repeating these two
rows until our heel flap measures about
one and a half to about two inches or
until your heel flap looks like a
perfect square
just bear in mind the longer your heel
flap this
again your mileage may vary depending on
how big your small your foot is
but it's good it's a good thing to keep
in mind that the longer your heel flap
the bigger or the deeper your instep is
going to be and i will show you that a
little bit later so you have a better
idea
once again feel free to pause this video
and continue knitting your heel flap
until it's about one and a half to two
inches or
however long you like that heel flap to
be
and come back and we will get started on
the heel turn which
i promise you is going to be so magical
you'll want to turn all the heels
[Music]
all right we are coming to the last row
of our heel flap
and you should end on a wrong side
before starting the heel turn
so i'm ending on the wrong side which is
a purl side
last stitch and turn your work to the
right side
and there we have our heel flap so mine
currently measures about
a little over two inches i want to say
ideally you want your heel flap to be a
square it doesn't have to be perfect but
you know ballpark shape square
next up we are going to do the heel flap
and i know this scares a lot of you
but believe me this is very very simple
again the more socks you knit the more
second nature this will become
you will be able to memorize this but if
you are a new sock knitter i would
suggest finding a quiet little corner
i don't know maybe the bathroom a place
where you won't be disturbed for the
next 10 to 15 minutes
because this will require a bit of
attention at first if you refer
to the heel turning section of my
favorite sock pattern you'll see that
the next couple of stitches that you
have to knit will differ depending on
which
size sock you're knitting so again i'm
knitting uh the size medium
which is a 64 stitch cast on so the
pattern says for me to
knit 18 stitches if you are knitting the
small
you're going to knit 16 and if you are
knitting the large you're going to knit
the next
20 stitches so for the size medium i'm
going to knit 18 stitches
so 1 2
3 4 15
16 17 18.
the next step is to slip slip knit or
ssk
so i'm going to do that slip slip
knit and that creates a left leaning
decrease and then i'm going to knit one
stitch
and now the pattern says to turn our
work so i'm going to flip it over
to the wrong side and we're ready to
start row two
so for this row we are going to slip the
next stitch
and according to the pattern depending
what size you're knitting
you will purl four or five or seven
and again i'm knitting the medium size
so i'm going to purl
five stitches one
two three
four five
and now we're going to purl two
and purl one and
turn your work congratulations my friend
you've just
set up your heel turn all right so now
we are going to
progress to row three so for this we're
going to
slip the first stitch as if to purl
and then we're going to knit to the gap
so
if you look very closely here on row one
you knit one together and then
knit a stitch which created a little
tiny gap it's very subtle kind of like a
short row so the pattern says to knit to
one stitch
before the gap and that is this stitch
right here
you can see right there so that is what
i'm going to do
and this applies to no matter what sock
size you're knitting
all right so now you can see
the gap right here and now the pattern
says to slip slip knit
or ssk
don't mind the gap
that's okay after we've made that ssk
we've closed the gap
and then we're just going to knit one
and turn our work
that was easy and row four is relatively
the same except
it's a purl row so we're going to slip
one and then we're going to purl again
to one stitch before the gap
okay and you can see the gap right there
right there and we're gonna do the same
thing we're gonna close that gap with a
purl two together
and a purl one and we're gonna
turn our work if you spread your
knitting apart a little bit you can
start to see the heel turn taking
shape which is pretty awesome all we
need to do now is repeat rows three and
four
until all of these stitches on either
side of
the gaps are worked so pretty simple
right
pause the video here finish turning your
heel come back and we shall start to
pick up the gussets
[Music]
i'm just about to work the last stitch
of row four on the wrong side
and you'll notice there's a gap here but
no stitch after but don't worry about
that
just purl the two stitches together
and turn your work there we go and you
guys look we've turned the heel how cool
is that
i told you it was magic so we still have
one more little gap over here to work
and then we can start
picking up the stitches to create our
gussets or instep
and now we're left with this gap at the
end and we're just going to knit those
two together
and that's it at this point your sock
should look something
like this nothing like a sock but
maybe a piece of modern art or something
but sit tight we're going to
pick up these stitches along the heel
flap and
knit across the top of the foot and then
come back down here and pick up the
other selvage stitches to
start making our gusset stitches if
you're working with double pointed
needles you may have to shift your
stitches around to knit comfortably but
at the end of the day you're going to
put stitch markers at
either end of the top of the foot and a
new stitch marker to
note your beginning of the row so
stick with me this is a little bit
fiddly but
it will all make sense pretty soon so
for this part i'm just going to shift my
stitches around
on my cord so i can free up these
stitches and
manipulate picking up stitches a lot
more easier
if that makes any sense that probably
did that was not grammatically correct i
apologize but
ah words kristin anyway you will see
that there are solid stitches along
either side of the heel flap so to pick
up your solid stitches you're going to
want to insert your left needle
under those solvent those two strands of
selvage stitches
insert your right needle bring your
working yarn around and
knit them and you're going to want to
give the first stitch a nice little tug
just to kind of close the gap
and you're just going to continue going
up along
[Music]
the edge of the heel flap picking up and
knitting those selvage stitches
all right so i've picked up and knit all
the stitches along one side of the heel
flap
and don't worry about stitch count at
this point your stitch count is going to
vary depending how
short or long you made your heel flap
don't worry regardless you're going to
end up with more stitches than you
cast on all of that will be taken care
of when we start decreasing
the gusset stitches so now that we've
picked up and knit the stitches along
one side of the heel flap we're going to
knit the stitches across the top of the
foot i've knit so many socks so i don't
really need to do this but
i if you are new to sock knitting i
would strongly suggest putting a stitch
marker here so you can tell
where one side of the heel flop ends the
top of the foot begins and then
the other side of the heel flap begins
so a stitch marker can definitely help
you but i'm going to shift my
needle stitches along my needles once
again and again
there's no right or wrong way to do this
find a method that works for you as far
as
organizing your stitches but now i'm
going to knit across
the 32 stitches that have been on hold
for
quite some time at this point okay
coming to the
end 32
all right so now i've knit across the
top of my foot i'm going to flip my work
again
again this is the point where you can
put a stitch marker so now we are going
to
pick up and knit
the selvages on the other side of the
heel flap
just insert our needle up there
and just keep doing it so right now your
sock should look something like this
something like a uterus if you know let
your imagination run wild
and earlier i said not to worry too much
about stitch count we're going to
bring our stitch count back down to our
original cast on number
i'm going to knit to
about the midpoint of the heel turn
so i'll have 25 stitches on one side 25
stitches on the other side and put my
stitch marker there and that will be my
new beginning of round
so this stitch right here is the
beginning of one side of the heel flap
so
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16.
i'm just gonna knit now i'm just going
to knit
17 18
19 20 21
22 23 24
25 so i knit 25 now i'm going to pop a
stitch marker on here to
start my new beginning of round and it's
cute little gargoyle
so now i have 25 stitches from the
center of the bottom of the foot all the
way to the top of the foot
so now all we're doing is knitting one
row in the round in plain stockinette
and then slip your markers as you come
to them
and if knitting these stitches feels
fiddly don't worry about it once you
start decreasing your stitches it will
get
a little more easy to manage so now i'm
coming to the top of the foot
and if you put a stitch marker here
simply slip your stitch marker and now
just knit across the top of the foot
when you come to the end of the top of
the foot slip your marker if you put one
shift your stitches around if you need
to
and
knit down the other side
of the heel flap all right we are all
ready to start decreasing
our gusset stitches as i mentioned
you're going to have way more stitches
on your needles than you
cast on and the point of decreasing your
gusset stitches is to bring that stitch
count back down to your original cast on
number so if you need a little break
after this section
pause the video come back and we'll
start decreasing our gusset stitches
all right my friends we're almost done
shaping the middle of the foot
and we will be home free to start
knitting
again in the round but first we need to
decrease our gusset stitches
for this first round we're going to knit
until three stitches before
the first stitch of the top of the foot
or before
the next stitch marker so that
okay we have three stitches left over
here we're just going to
knit two stitches together
and knit one and if you place the stitch
marker here's where you slip your marker
and knit across the top of the foot
now when you come to the other side of
the heel flap you're going to
knit one stitch
and ssk slip slip knit
decrease a stitch and knit to the
beginning of the row
so you've decreased a total of two
stitches on either side of the heel flap
row two this one is so complicated guys
all you're gonna do is knit one row
plain stockinette and that my friends is
row two
so now what we're gonna do is just
repeat rows one and two
until you have your original stitch
count and i will see you
on the other side
[Music]
so your sock should still look something
like a uterus at this point
depending what kind of knitting needles
you're using uh if you're using dpn's it
might look like something else like a
ninja star but
if you've been following along with the
directions and knitting rows one and two
of the gusset decreases
you should be back down to your original
cast on
count and you should have this nice
little triangle formed filled in between
your gusset stitches and your heel flap
on both
sides and if that's where you are
at congratulations you are you're
nailing it for the foot all you're doing
is knitting plain stockinette in the
round
i like to try on my sock occasionally to
check the length and i usually know it's
time to decrease
for the toe when my stitches reach
the tip of my pinky toe but again your
mileage may vary
so again pop on a podcast some netflix
or what have you
call call a loved one call a friend say
hello
and get some stitches in and come back
when you are ready to decrease the toe
if you are watching this i'm assuming
that you have completed knitting the
foot of your sock
congratulations it should look something
like this
just like a flat tube with a little
blob of if you are a new sock knitter
congratulations pat yourself in the back
have an extra slice of cake
or a glass of wine um you've come a long
way
so we are now ready to start decreasing
for the toe
and again we're just going to continue
knitting in the round however we're
going to be decreasing
two stitches on either side of the foot
if you're knitting magic loop the sides
of your socks should naturally be marked
already because i have 32 stitches
across the bottom of my foot and 32
stitches
across the top of my foot but if you're
knitting with dpns or some other method
you should have stitch markers just
marking the edges of your foot
and the reason why you want to keep
these edges clearly marked is because we
are going to be working decreases
upon three stitches before and after
each
point if that makes sense uh if that
doesn't make sense let me demonstrate
starting at the beginning of the row we
are going to knit until three stitches
before the edge okay so now we have
three stitches left over here
we are going to slip slip
knit so ssk and then knit one
and flip our work if you're magic
looping
and if you are using stitch markers slip
your marker
so we're going to work another decrease
over the next three stitches so
knit one
and knit two together so now we've made
two decreases on one side of the foot
now we're going to knit across the top
of the foot
until three stitches before the next
turning point or stitch marker the cool
part about
decreasing the toe is it gets shorter
and shorter with every row
so these will be done in no time
so now we have three stitches remaining
and once again we're going to
ssk make
a left leaning decrease and knit one
okay and then we're going to flip our
work again slip your marker
and last decrease of the round
one more time knit one
and knit two together
and then knit to the beginning of the
round
and that's it we've decreased four
stitches this round so two stitches on
either side of the foot
and for the next round we're going to
knit just knit all your stitches one row
in the round
okay all right so that was row two
so now you're going to repeat these two
rows until you have 28 stitches on the
needles pause the video come back when
you're ready and we will
graft the toe together
well hello there congratulations you
made it to the final round
you should have finished on round two so
when you come to your stitch marker you
can go ahead and remove your stitch
marker
and knit until
you come to the last edge stitch if that
makes any sense so
now if you're using magic loop you want
to just pull
in your stitches or shift your stitches
along your needles
so that you have 14 stitches on one
needle and 14 stitches on the other
needle
and if you are using dpn's you want to
do the same
so shift 14 stitches onto one needle and
14
stitches onto a separate needle and get
rid of your other
needles so you're only going to be
working with two needles now
all right we are going to kitchener
stitch these 14 stitches
and for those of you that are freaked
out by the kitchener stitch
fret knot what you want to do is cut
your yarn so that you have a 10 inch
tail
and grab a darning needle i have this
beautiful darning needle that was
handcrafted by the lovely and amazing
leslie wind
and i keep it with me at all times in my
notions pouch
and i use it for pretty much all my
darning needs
and yeah you just want to thread your
darning needle and again if you're
referencing the
pattern the kitchener stitch is written
out in
all its entirety so hopefully you can
follow along with that but i will
endeavor to explain it and demonstrate
it to my best ability
here on this tutorial so all right when
you're starting the kitchener stitch you
want to make sure that your working yarn
is hanging
down from the needle furthest to you and
then you're going to take
your darning needle you can it's okay
you can shift your stitches up
a little closer to the tip of the needle
to get the kitchener stitch started
you're going to
insert your darning needle into the
first stitch on the needle
closest to you and just pull your yarn
through
then you're going to insert your darning
needle
into the first stitch on the needle
furthest to you as if to knit
and pull it through you're not pulling
these stitches off the needles you're
just setting this up essentially what
this is doing is creating a secure
little
invisible knot so to speak at the
beginning of your kitchener stitch
so now that you have that in place we
can now get into a
a rhythmic flow if that makes sense this
will soon become more intuitive and
hopefully you will be able to memorize
this step number one you're going to
insert your darning needle into that
first stitch on the needle closest to
you
and lift it off the needle and pull your
yarn through
now you're going to insert your needle
into the next stitch on the same needle
as if to purl do not lift it off the
needle but instead just pull your yarn
through so now you've worked
one part of the kitchener stitch on the
needle closest to you but now you have
to work the two stitches on the needle
furthest from you so we're going to do
the same thing but
in reverse order so instead of inserting
your needle
knit wise you're going to insert your
needle purlwise
and lift it off of the needle
next you're going to insert your needle
knit wise into the stitch
directly behind that and pull your yarn
through
and now you've worked a total of two
stitches lifting one stitch
off each needle and that is all you have
to do for the kitchener stitch just
keep repeating those steps until all of
your stitches are worked so of course
i'm going to do this one more time
i'm going to insert my needle as if to
knit
lifting that stitch off the needle
closest to me
pulling it through and inserting
my needle as if to purl
into the stitch behind that pulling my
yarn through
now we're going to work on the back
needle inserting
my needle as if to purl lifting it off
and inserting it as if to knit
in the next stitch and again take this
very slowly one step at a time
and there you go that's it and you'll
start to see how
seamless this grafting looks it's really
nice
knit lift
purl leave behind
purl lift
knit and leave behind
knit lift purl
and leave behind pearl
and lift knit
and leave behind we're almost there you
guys so close we have three more
stitches to work so we're going to knit
and lift
purl and leave behind purl and lift
knit and leave behind
one more i feel like i'm doing a workout
video
knit and lift purl
and leave behind purl and lift
knit and leave behind all right guys
two more stitches left what do we do if
you remember when we set up our
kitchener stitches
we worked the first two rows uh
inserting our needle as if to knit on
the needle closest to us and as if to
purl
and the needle right behind it so for
this one we are doing the same exact
thing
inserting our needle as if to knit
oops don't want that over there okay
and then we're inserting our needle as
if to purl
pull your needles out give it a nice
little tug
and you have just finished knitting a
sock my friends
congratulations so now all that's left
to do is to weave in your ends and block
it if you want and you have
a sock my friends it is done
and there you have it this is how you
knit a sock or at least this is how i
like to knit my socks i know i said at
the beginning that soft knitting is easy
anyone can do it but a simple sock has
quite a bit of anatomy but again the
more socks you knit the easier and more
intuitive and more memorizable it'll be
and again the heel is very plug and play
so it doesn't have to be a grafted
heel or a heel turn you can insert
whatever heel you want to try
whenever you want this again is just my
recipe for
knitting plain socks and they're great
for showcasing
beautiful skeins of hand-dyed yarn or
special yarns
from your travels and yeah i really hope
that you found this tutorial helpful
and that it has inspired you to kick
start your sock knitting journey
whatever that
might look like i had a lot of fun
shooting this and certainly hope to do
more of these tutorials in the future if
you did enjoy this video and found it
helpful and you haven't already please
feel free to
like and subscribe down below i put out
two videos for your viewing pleasure
every week
and until the next video happy knitting
and i'll see you next time
[Music]
you
