I love knitting textural stitches of all kinds and especially love incorporating them into the socks that I design and knit. I run the full range from very challenging lacy or cable designs to simple knit/purl combinations that are just enough to add some interest while still being easy and fun to knit. These are some of the latter kind of socks!

This design grew out of a simple 2/2 ribbing starting point because I didn’t want to clash with the gorgeous long run color gradient of this yarn. As such, the socks retain a lovely stretchiness that is very forgiving when it comes to those of us blessed with thick ankles, high insteps, wide feet and the like. After some test swatching, I came up with this stitch pattern that reminded me strongly of…something. Hmmm, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It made me nuts for a few days and finally it came to me: newly tilled or plowed furrows in a corn field in the spring!

You see, I don’t have a farming background at all, BUT: my first faculty position after graduate school was at a small university in the midwest set amongst corn and soy fields as far as the eye could see. It was a real change for me, having only every lived in urban settings. I remember being at first confused and then highly amused by an op-ed in the local newspaper that very seriously warned farmers to not get carried away by the suddenly warm and beautiful spring weather by jumping on a big ol’ tractor and tilling some fields up and down just for the fun of it. Not planting anything, mind you—that has to be meticulously timed for each crop. Nope—this was just riding around and tilling or turning over the soil in the fields.

Now, to be fair, we did have quite long, gray and slushy winters that always seemed to drag on about 6 weeks too long, so one can hardly blame farmers for wanting to get out and do something when it finally did warm up. The writer called this phenomenon “Recreational Tilling” and everyone in the community knew exactly what that meant (except for stupid me). It turns out that too much tilling is a bad thing—it increases labor and fuel costs and contributes mightily to soil erosion/loss. All of these are serious issues for farmers, of course, and while I had heard about “agricultural practices” (a nice, vague term) and “erosion” (also a huge umbrella term) I had never actually lived in a farming community and heard about a real practice that factored heavily into those concepts. And never mind one so enchantingly termed, “Recreational Tilling”. So I have named these socks for their regular furrows and commemorated that unwise but irresistible practice of riding around on a large piece of farm equipment in your t-shirt, plowing the fertile soil, enjoying the sunny day and the cool but not cold breezes on your pale bare arms for the first time in several months. Even if its not such a good idea—sometimes you just can’t help it. :-D

Anywho, these socks are worked from the top down with a heel flap, standard gussets and a wide toe. The socks shown are worked in size L and easily fit a women’s US size 11 (European size 41). This L size would also accommodate the smaller men’s sizes while size XL would be perfect for larger men’s sizes. Sizing is generous for all of the sizes: do not size up. The stitch pattern is given as a simple chart AND as fully written out instructions.

Yarn recommendations: long run color change yarns (as shown) are great. Solids or tonals would also be OK. Variegated yarns are OK, but if there is too much variegation, the pattern will not show up as well.