This pattern served as the High Octane choice for Lap 4 of the 2022 Supersock World Championship competition. It will be available when the competition is over.

It’s easy enough to place a textural or lace pattern on the front side of a sock only and leave the rest as stockinette where sizing is easily accomplished. It gets a bit more complicated when the pattern is placed on the back as well. Sizing can still be adjusted by altering the bordering areas (if there are any) but often such sizing alterations result in the overall appearance of the sock to be significantly different for the different sizes offered. What happens at the heel and sole of the sock is also an issue to be dealt with: how does the pattern integrate with both of those sock parts? Abruptly ending is the easiest to design and knit but is, of course, the least elegant.

This sock design was born of a desire to address all of these issues smoothly. I was also inspired to include my newish wedge heel that I have been developing in the past year. This facilitated a very organic heel treatment where the rearward facing main lace pattern simply parts to allow for the growth of the heel portion. Sizing is still accomplished by altering the regions located on the sides of the sock, but since these areas are worked in ribs, they blend right in with the swirling ribs present in the main lace patterns.

The lace pattern itself features leaf or foliar motifs that overlap on the outer edges with a column of small delicate flowers in the center picked out by judiciously placed YOs.

These socks are knit top down. The heel is worked integrally and thus cannot be worked in a separate color. The socks as shown were knit up in the L size and are shown on a women’s size 10 model. Choose a lighter colored yarn that is a solid, preferably a light color; variegated or self-striping yarns will obscure the pattern and heel details. I knit socks on 4 DPNs at a time, I have attempted to generalize my instructions for folks who use other needle set-ups.