Where Do Your Toes Start?
Well, not so much your actual, personal toes. I’m assuming those start towards the end of your feet. I more mean where do your sock toes start. I ask because the yellow socks are looking a lot like this:
That’s the point where I have to try them on every two or three rows to see if it’s time to do the toes. For my feet, I’m happiest if I start the first round of toe decreases just as the sock reaches the tip of my smallest toe (so I need about another half inch or so on this one). Then I do decreases every other row until the sock reaches the tip of my next toe. For me that’s usually three pairs of decrease round/non-decrease round. Then I decrease every row until I have somewhere around 20 stitches left (the precise number often depends on the specifics of the pattern and what will look best).
But I know everyone seems to do their toes differently, and I’m curious how you do it. Do you do exactly what a pattern says? Do you have landmarks on your own feet you use to guide you (yes, I have seen the tattoos, that’s some real dedication)? Do you do anatomical toes? Or maybe you just wing it? I always feel that really well fitting toes are one of the perks of knit socks, and I’m curious to hear how you guys tweak yours.
I knit to my “toe cleavage”…that spot between my big toe and second toe. And then I knit the “standard” decreases (one row of decreases, followed by one even round) until I have 12 stitches left on each needle before Kitchenering in two sets of 12.
I once followed the directions down to 2 sets of 8, and it looks ridiculous on my foot.
Perfect! Very helpful!
There is no edit button – I probably should have been clearer that I magic loop, so 12 stitches on each of two needles, not each of three or four DPNs 😉
I do toe up so I don’t need to worry!
Erm, I don’t always knit the same type of toe and partly because of that, I often have to re-knit the toe to get the right size. I also have noticed that I always have to knit further than the pattern says.
I start decreasing at the last joint on the little toe which matches up to the slant after the bump where big toe leaves foot. I then decrease every three rows, ie 1,4,7,10 etc, until I am wrapped over the end of my foot. This is usually either after row 22 or 25.
It sounds unusual but I get a row gauge of 11 or 12 rows per inch so have modified the normal decreases to fit the gauge and feet with the second toe as long as the “big toe” which needs a blunt toe rather than a pointed toe.
With two socks on two circular needles it is easy to try them on as I get nearly finished. I try to have the sock really wrap the front of the foot so the Kitchner row lies half way down the toe front.
Thank you for asking. I tried other decreases for years before building one for my gauge and my feet.
For my socks, I stop increasing where you do, at the tip of the pinky, but I don’t do anatomical socks for myself.
When I next knit my husband a pair (this is in my plans for this year) I will knit his to match his foot shape (with all increases after the first round being only on one side and going on until the tip of his pinky), but his toes are sharply angled so standard socks fit oddly.
I should have said that I do toe up. But maybe the increasing would have made that plain.
One of the great benefits of toe-up… only to have to figure out when to start the heel. (Answer is, for me, when the sock is about 6″-6.5″ long.)
Um, this is kind of weird, but I do my toes almost exactly as you just said! I’m not sure how many times I do standard decreases before decreasing every round, it changes with sock and stitch count for me, but the general idea is the same.
I knit to just past the big toe joint, which is even with the base of the little toenail on my foot (just a little further than where you’re at in the photo). Then I decrease every other row until I have about 24 stitches left. I do two rows with decreases on each and one without, twice… that gets me down to 16 total (8 top and 8 bottom) then I kitchener. That seems to fit my short and square-ish toe box the best.
I like to imagine that my feet are exactly 9 inches long and then follow the pattern accordingly. It bites me in the arse and I need to redo the toes of the first sock about every 4 or 5th pair. 🙂
I start the same place you do-at the end of my pinkie toe. But I do decreases every other round until I have 10 (or 11 depending on the pattern) stitches on the sole and top of the foot, then I graft. I like a boxy toe.
I’ll usually read the toe pattern that the designer wrote just to see what they recommend, but I usually do my aforementioned toe. One of your patterns I made several years ago carried the ribbing all the way through the toe, so I’ll do that if the pattern has built in ribbing.
I must have perfectly standard feet. I usually just follow the pattern and mine always fit just fine.
where do my toes start…well the end of my foot of course.
ok just kidding – I normally start my toes at the first knuckle of my big toe. I have blunt square toes … you know the kind that don’t really fit in the pretty pointed high heel shoes you see in the fashion magazines…my feet are more suited to work boots.
I have a slightly different style of knitting my toe so that I don’t have grafting at the tip of my toes. my grafting line is at the side and I only graft 4 or 6 sts. For me it is a comfortable toe and it looks very nice too. and even better instead of grafting 15-20 stitches at the end of the toe I graft just a few. if you are curious you can see a picture of my blunt square toes and a knit recipe for my slightly different toe shaping here http://whatzitknitz.com/?p=3980
Oh that’s so funny, I’m working on sort of the reverse of that as a way to start a toe up slipper! It’s marvelous you’ve tweaked it to work for your foot. And your toes look a lot like mine!
Toe up is just as bad trying to figure out the heel. It annoys me when people say that toe up solves this problem. It doesn’t.