It’s not often, for me, that the pattern comes before the yarn choice, but I do have some designs that I have played with before choosing yarn. These designs, or parts of designs, are often half fleshed out, or didn’t turn out quite as I imagined, but are something that I keep because it might be useful later. Such was the case with the big flower on these socks.

I sketched out the big flower in a charting program at least a year ago, trying to get the petals right. (I’ve never been very good at drawing, you see, and mapping out 5 petals on a grid is harder than it might seem.) I liked the flower, but it didn’t end up being right for my project at the time. So I saved it. One day I looked down at the floor at a bag of yarn that had been previously caked up, and it hit me that some of those bright, summery colors would be perfect for the big flower I had saved! It was only a matter of completing the design. And that is how these socks came to be!

These socks have a larger number of stitches for the colorwork sections compared to the stockinette portion, so that they can be knit on the same needle size throughout the sock, and still retain the correct circumference for both sections.

There are some long floats in the flower portion of the sock. I highly recommend using Ladderback Jacquard (LBJ) to manage these floats. I have a link to a tutorial video for this method included in the pattern. (I have testers who learned LBJ while testing this sock, and they did wonderfully!)

There is also a link to a tutorial video for knitting the colorwork portions inside out.

Sizes: S (M, L) to fit 7-8 (8-9, 9-10)” or about 18-20 (20-22.5, 23-25.5) cm circumferences

Yarn:
MC: 100g of fingering weight yarn
CCs: 2 x 20g fingering weight yarn

Needles:
US size 1 (2.25mm)

Extras:
Stitch marker
Tapestry needle
Ruler or measuring tape

Gauge:
34 stitches and 48 rows to 4” (10cm) worked in stockinette stitch in the round.

36 stitches and 44 rows to 4” (10cm) worked in stranded colorwork in the round.