The How Are You? Socks use the cozy double-knitting technique to make a perfectly-reversible pair of ankle socks. However, just because they are seamlessly reversible doesn’t mean they’re the same on both sides! Are you in a good mood or a bad mood today? Tell everyone in the area whether or not it’s safe to approach you while you’re working on a challenging knitting project without looking up, just by choosing which way to wear these socks!

This is the Round 1 bonus sock for Sock Madness 19! You can find questions, chat, and FOs in the group forums. The pattern is exclusive to competition participants until June 2025, at which point it will be available for sale to the public.

Pattern Description

These whimsical toe-up socks with patterning on both the sole and instep have an afterthought heel and a 2x2-rib cuff. The double-knit stranded colourwork must be worked differently on each side to create the two different motifs.

The patterning is provided both as charts and as written instructions. The pattern also offers suggestions about adjusting the width of the heel for accommodating a higher instep. Generally, float management is not required even for complex double-knitting because the floats are all kept between the layers of fabric.

Techniques required for this pattern include:

• Basic knitting stitches (knit, purl, slip, directional increases and decreases in both knit and purl),
• Judy’s Magic Cast On (video link provided),
• double knitting (detailed instructions provided, as well as a video link),
• directional increases and decreases in double knitting (detailed instructions provided),
• grafting/Kitchener stitch (video link provided), and
• picking up an afterthought heel from a scrap yarn placeholder (video link provided).

This pattern is written in a method-neutral manner to suit any sock-knitting technique — double-pointed needles, Magic Loop, two circular needles, or a short circular needle. Note when choosing a technique that there are double the usual number of stitches on the needles when making a double-knit sock.

Yarn Requirements and Sizing

Sizes available: Adult Small (Medium, Large) for finished foot circumferences of 18.5 (21, 24) cm / 7.25 (8.25, 9.5) inches, with minimum foot lengths of 20.5 (22, 23) cm / 8 (8.625, 9) inches (this is adjustable to any longer length desired by adding extra rounds before the heel; you can also make a taller sock by adding rounds after the heel). If you work at a different gauge, your foot sizing will vary accordingly from these measurements.

The needle size provided above is only a suggestion; be sure to use whatever needle size (or combination of needle sizes) that works well for your individual tension, yarn choice, and desired gauge/size. For double-knitting, I generally recommend using needles that are smaller than your usual sock knitting needle size.

This pattern requires fingering weight yarn appropriate for socks in two clearly-contrasting colours; each colour requires approximately 200 (225, 250) m / 220 (245, 275) yards; 400 (450, 500) m / 440 (490, 550) yards. (This may seem like a lot of yarn for ankle socks, but remember, you are essentially making four socks, not two!)

These socks are rated 5/5 — Challenging — on my sock pattern difficulty scale. This is because they are constructed using double-knitting with several specialized techniques required, and the patterning is different on each side of the fabric.