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in this tutorial we're going to learn to maketoe-up lace socks using german short rows instead of traditional wraps and turns. ihave a toe-up socks using german short rows pattern. i'll give you a link here on screento that. that's for non-lace sock, just a plain sock. this is my new favorite way to knit socksand i'm excited to offer a lace pattern in this new favorite way of mine to knit socks.the response has been great for the other toe-up socks using german short rows, i'mgoing to shorten it to gsr. okay german short rows. everyone has really enjoyed that patternand i've had a lot of requests for cable socks, lace socks, all kinds of different socks.
this pattern is knit with dk or sport weightyarn and in the sample socks that i've knit up i have used a sport weight yarn. this islion brand lb collection superwash merino. it's a stretchy yarn, it works really wellin socks and also my favorite yarn for these socks is knit picks hawthorne sport and thecolor ways are really gorgeous. you can see how they knit up, very pretty. i've found that because this lace is reallystretchy it doesn't matter dk or sport weight yarn is close enough it won't make a difference.yes, i want to talk about toe-up socks. few reasons that these are my new favorite socksand the reason that everyone in my family is getting a pair of german short row socksknit in dk weight yarn. toe-up socks are great
because you can use all of your yarn. youknit the toe, the foot and the heel and then just knit the calf using whatever yarn youhave left which means no leftovers, which means you get the longest sock possible. that'sgreat about toe-up. great thing about dk weight socks is thatthey knit up much more quickly than sock weight yarn and i get this question a lot but onceyou've used german short rows and you understand how they work, you can really substitute germanshort rows for any pattern that uses traditional wraps and turns. so i get a lot of requests,'can you convert this german short row pattern into sock weight yarn for me?' and reallyi don't have to. just go to ravelry and find a top sock pattern that you like that usestraditional wraps and turns and just do the
german short row technique instead. but theseare a great way to learn german short rows, i personally love the socks. love knittingthem and love wearing them. there was one more cool thing i was goingto say. oh, the german short rows. we got three cool things going on, german short rows,dk weight yarn and toe-up. the german short rows if you haven't already guessed they area substitute for traditional wraps and turns and people's biggest complaint was traditionalwraps and turns is picking up the wraps are really difficult. it's hard to see them, it'shard to know you're picking up the right thing. if you mess something up it can leave a gapin your socks, whatever. it takes practice. german short rows are a lot easier and i'mgoing to walk you through everything.
okay, i have been talking and talking. ifyou would like to get your copy of the pattern to follow along, i'll give you a link hereon screen to my website where you'll find all the information to everything that i mentionand use in the video. the pattern is sized for men, women and kids. yes, i sized it formen, i asked on facebook, i posted a picture of my foot in the socks and i said, 'new patterncoming out.' and some guys were responding and i said should i size this for men andthey were like, 'yeah, we want to knit this for ourselves.' okay guys can wear lace socksif they want. i am happy to provide the size for them. so men, women and kids you will need 100 gramsof sport or dk weight yarn and i believe size
3 us needles. all the details of course arein the video description field and on my website. i think that's everything i want to say inthe introduction. yes. so we're going to start with the toe of the sock coming up next. something i forgot to say in the intro isthat the pattern does give instructions for working these socks both magic loop usingone long circular needle and two at a time magic loop. i'm going to demonstrate on doublepointed needles which is my preferred way to knit these socks, really to knit any socks.but i know there are a lot of people who want to knit both of them at the same time or wantto use circular needle. so the pattern does include instructions for that.
let's go ahead and take a close up look atthe lace and the whole sock. here it is in the hawthorne sport and this is actually alace rib so you can see there's a lot of give in these. honestly i can't stand it when ipick a sock pattern that doesn't have a lot to give. it's not as comfortable and there'sthe german short rows in the toe. it's actually easier to see everything in this solid colorand there is the lace in the solid color and here is the toe. and strangely enough thetoe and the heel of toe-up socks is worked identically. they're worked exactly the same.it's kind of mind blowing. okay. so we are going to start with a provisionalcast on and a crochet chain and i will explain if you knit the german short row socks, myother german short row socks, the techniques
i'm going to use to use here are about thesame but they are two entirely different patterns. just so you know. i tie a knot in some yarn, i picked a yarnthat is a different color from the yarn that i'm going to use in my socks. i tie a knotso that i can mark the slip knot side of this crochet chain. i want to be able to identifythe slip knot side. then the pattern tells you how many two crochet chain for the sizeyou're knitting, and if you need help with crochet chain, i'll give you a link here tomy video. i was of course talking and not counting and i did really well actually. just one moreto do. okay. we are going to pick up stitches startingat the slip knot end, turn the crochet chain
over so that we're looking at the back ofit and we can see the spine of the crochet chain and take your needles and your actualsock yarn and you can skip the first couple. we chained more than we need. put your needle under one of those hyphens,wrap your yarn around the needle and pull it through going to the next one. you wantto try to avoid splitting stitches but if you do split a stitch you can deal with itlater. okay. i'm actually going to walk through the entire toe of this sock with you. justan abbreviated version. i'm not actually going to pick up enough stitches for a real sock.also i should mention i'm using thicker yarn and bigger needles than the pattern actuallycalls for. so you can see what i'm doing more
easily. this is not the yarn or needles usedin the pattern. this is worsted weight yarn in size 7 needles. so after you pick up the number the patterntells you to, you purl back across these stitches. i'm just going to set up a row. and if you'venever knit toe-up socks before, the whole process is magic, the way it all comes together.okay. now we are ready to get started on the short rows. and the pattern has this writtenout row by row. i'm going to show you the techniques. first thing you do is knit up to the verylast stitch, actually knitting the very last stitch. okay, knit the very last stitch, i'mgoing to work the german short row technique
on that stitch. i turn the work, my workingyarn is in front because i just purled the row, i'm ready to purl a row, slip that stitchas if to purl from the left needle to the right and then pull up on the working yarn.it gives you kind of a funny double stitch. then pull the yarn forward between the twoneedles to purl across. so that's the german short row technique afteryou've finished a right side row from the purl side. now we're going to purl up to thelast stitch. actually purl the last stitch. turn the work. pull the yarn forward, it'sthe end stitch so it doesn't make that much difference. it'll make a difference in subsequentstitches. slip that stitch from the left needle to the right. pull up on that stitch. it givesyou kind of a funny double stitch but it looks
a little different than the other side, that'sfine. and then knit across to the second to the last stitch. there's some construction going on outsideif you hear banging and burly men laughing. that's what it sounds like from here, it soundslike some kind of beer party. so i knit up to the second to last stitch, turn the work.working yarn's already in front. slip that stitch from the left needle to the right,and pull up on that stitch. then pull the yarn forward to work a purl row. and purlto the second to last stitch. okay. purl the second to the last stitch.turn the work. pull the yarn forward between the two needles. slip that stitch from theleft to the right. purl up on it, and knit
to the third to last stitch. turn the work.working yarn's already in front. slip that stitch from the left needle to the right.pull up on that stitch. yarn forward and purl to the third to last stitch. this is the lastone i'm going to show you for this first half of the toe. turn, yarn in front, slip thestitch, pull up, and start working across. that's the first half of the toe, and if youtake a look you can see we actually have. . .actually it's hard to see. but there issome nice shaping going on. it's narrower over here and wider in the center. just likeit's supposed to be. so of course the technique for german shortrows and the number everything is really clearly explained in the pattern for the differentsizes. this is the first half of the toe finished
and in the next section we're going to dothe second half of the toe and working the lace pattern. we're ready to get started on the second halfof the toe, so let's go ahead and take a look. i have not touched these needles since i setthem down last time. again the pattern gives you absolute row by row instructions for allof this, i'm just showing you the techniques here. i'm going to knit up to the first double stitch.they're pretty easy to identify. see there's one. i'm going to knit those two strands together.it really is just one stitch and knit it together, and knit the next one. turn your work andwe're going to work a gsr on this stitch we
just knit. so slip, pull up, yarn forward,and start purling back. and you'll see that we just did a gsr on top of a gsr. it lookskind of funny. i swear it's fine. work up to the next double stitch. knit those twohalves together and the next one. turn the work. pull the yarn forward, slip, pull upand knit to the next one. so basically what we did is we worked germanshort rows several times in and then several times back out to incorporate all the stitchesagain. here is the first double stitch, knit those two halves together, and the next one.turn the work, work the gsr technique on this stitch, then purl across. work those togetherand the next one. one more gsr technique and i'm thinking about the next step. pull upon that stitch.
okay we're down to the last double stitch.i'm going to knit these two together and turn the work. i don't want to work anymore germanshort rows. i'm just going to slip that stitch and work across to the very last double stitch.and work those two together. ta-da! now this is an abbreviated version of the toe of thesock knit in thicker yarn, but you can definitely see that that looks like the toe of a sock,even if it's a little squatty toe of a sock. it is a toe of a sock. now is a good time to tie together the tailend and the working yarn, it helps eliminate any gap there. we are going to remove theprovisional cast on, and get these stitches live on the needle again. now remember wetied a knot in the slip knot end? you want
to start on the non-slip knot end over here,and undo this crochet chain. all we did was pull the tail end through the last loop andpop, pop, pop down to the first stitch. the first stitch of provisional cast on is alwayswonky. the yarn runs through that stitch. you can see the white stitch. this is oneof the reasons we want to use a contrasting color of yarn so we can for sure see this.so i am just going to put my needle in to that stitch. it's a little twisted thing. i'm splitting the yarn. there we go. thenpull the needle out of that stitch. okay we're done with the first one. it's the hardestone. now as we look at these other stitches yousee the blue yarn is my provisional cast on in waste yarn that i'm going to get rid of,and these vs underneath are the stitches that
i want to retrieve. there's a v there. i wantto put the tip of my needle under the right leg of the v all the way across. and the waythat i like to do this is to do a few at a time. there's the next v going to the rightleg. you can do one at a time if you like. i like to get several on there because i liketo unzip a whole bunch at one time. it's because i'm childish. okay. i didn't have any snagstitches what do you know. if i did have a snag stitch i had my little scissors herewaiting. i would just cut any blue yarn from the provisional cast on color that was inmy way. if i split a stitch i might have to cut a little piece but i didn't have to. now we have all of this ready to go. workingin a round on our double pointed needles and
the pattern has you knit a couple of rows,a couple of rounds before we get started on the lace pattern, but i'm going to start usout right on the lace pattern so i can show you how this works. i also want to grab asock. for the whole foot of the sock we work thelace pattern on half of the stitches and just plain knitting on the other half. that's becauseit's not comfortable to walk on decorative stitches. it's more comfortable to walk onplain knit stitches. then we'll have the lace all the way around in the cuff of the sock.but for now we're only going to work lace on half of the stitches and we're going tostart out with working this half in the lace. oh something else i want to show you. i should'vejust hung on to that sock.
there are these knit stitches between thepurls and the lace pattern, and you see how these knit stitches are really popping upoff the fabric? it's because they're knit through the back loop, and that's what we'regoing to do in this lace pattern, is knit these stitches through the back loop and then;just these separating stitches so they're the only ones. you'll see. so this is the beginning of my round. i'mgoing to start by knitting this stitch through the back loop. a normal knit stitch goes inlike this. i'm going to do it like this. knit through the back loop. purl one. knit two.purl one. that's the pattern we repeat. knit through the back loop, yarn forward to purlone, yarn back to knit two, yarn forward to
purl one. there are four rounds in this lacerepeat. i'm going to work through this and show you three of them. because the otherone's just knitting. knitting the knits and purling the purls, i want to make sure youhave all the techniques for lace down. i'm just knitting across these other two needlesfor the sole of the foot. okay. round three, i'm skipping a round becauseit's very simple. knit through the back loop, purl one, knit one, yarn over, knit one. yarnover is what gives us the little hole in the lace pattern. purl one. something really importantto keep in mind. i'm working this pattern and adding these yarn overs, it's actuallygoing to change my stitch count. so if you're worried about having the right stitch count,it seems like something's off, after you've
worked the yarn all around, you are goingto have one stitch more per repeat, but we are going to decrease that back out. i'm going to work across these and then showyou one more round. that was actually the second round. i'm going to show you the fourth roundnow. the main techniques i want to show you are the yarn over and this one. you knit throughthe back loop, that never changes, purl that never changes. then you want to knit threeand we're going to pass the third stitch over the other two. so one, two, three grab thethird stitch in like you're going to bind off, put some tension on the working yarnto help hold those stitches in place, and bind off. then purl one. knit through theback loop, purl one. knit three, pull the
third stitch over the other two. purl one.knit through the back loop, purl one. we can't really see it yet, i'm going to show you inanother example here in the next part. we got through so much of the sock there. nextup we're going to talk a bit about the heel and knitting the rest of the sock. we've really covered pretty much all of thetechniques used in these socks. there's a few other things i want to show you, but ifyou've made it this far you've gotten through the hardest parts. so let's go ahead and takea look. i have this chunky sample. this is the thickeryarn and bigger needles, so the lace does not quite look as pretty in this thicker yarn.but i want to talk to you about how to work
the heel. and the heel is worked just likethe toe. exactly the same row for row instructions as the toe. i always like to work the laceon one needle when i can, and then when i get to the heel, i like to transfer stitchesaround so that i can work all of the heel stitches on one needle and not two. becauseremember this is the instep so we want the heel to be worked on these two needles, onthese half of the stitches. so what i'm going to do is separate, slipthese lace stitches onto two needles for now. because we're going to combine these ontoone and we still want three needles going. and then slip the heel stitches all onto oneneedle, and then things are rearranged so that you are ready to work the heel. don'tlet yourself get confused by this. you are
going to the working yarns here, you are goingto knit across to the last stitch and german short row and purl across to the last stitchand german short row. you're only working on these stitches and ignoring the lace stitchesfor now. and that's it, it's not difficult at all. if you've already worked the toe theheel is just like it. so you are going to knit. after you finishthe heel you'll start working in the round again and knit the whole sock in lace. thewhole cuff in lace, and then when you start to run low on yarn you can start working therib. and the rib is modified to match the lace pattern. i have this little sample here.we can pretend the sock goes up to here and here is the last section of lace. it's knitthrough the back loop purl one, knit two,
purl one, so that it follows the same patternas the lace all the way up to the end. but i want to show you how to use this superstretchy bind off that is my favorite for socks now. i use it on all toe-up socks, ithink when i first did a video for this bind off i hadn't yet tried it in socks, and peoplegot back to me and said, "oh yeah, this is perfect for socks." now it's the only onei use. so we are going to follow the stitches thatwe see here with a little bit of a modified stretchy bind off. i'm going to knit one andpurl one and then put the needle in the back of those two stitches, the left needle inthe back of those two stitches, and purl those two stitches together. and then knit one andput the needle in the front of those two stitches
that you just worked and knit them together.then knit one, i'm just following what i see. there was another knit stitch, put the leftneedle into the front of those two stitches and knit those together, it's actually throughthe back loop. the next stitch is a purl, and purl them. rather than pulling one stitchover the other, we're working the stitches together once they're on the right needle. i like thisbind off also because unlike other stretchy bind offs, it doesn't have much flutter orflare to it. you can see it looks pretty sturdy, it's not fluting. it looks really good. now if you just be patient with me, i wantto finish up this bind off really quickly so i can show you one more technique. i usethis bind off on my new poncho pattern. i
think that's the first time i've actuallycalled for it in a pattern and i'm so happy with it. the poncho has a turtle neck andevery other bind off was either a fluttering and flaring or too stiff and not enough giveon the turtle neck. this bind off is like a great all purpose stretch. okay, you've been very patient with me throughthis bind off but it's all going to be worthwhile here in a moment, i promise. okay. so youbind off the last stitch, you can break your yarn, leaving about a six inch tail and pullthat loop, pull that tail through the last loop and tighten it up. now, this is whati want to show you because this is a mess, is a knot. this is the bind off row, thisis the end of it and it is so far from the
first bind off stitch and it looks terriblebut we have to leave in this end anyway and we can fix this while we do it. so take your tapestry needle and thread thattail on, and then you can see the bind off row looks like a series of these. this bindoff looks a little bit different than a traditional bind off but about the same. so we want tojump over to our first bind off row and go under both legs of the first v that we seeand pull that through. and then go back down into the same hole that you came out of orclose to it and tighten that up. and you see what we've done here. we've not only straightenedout, there's a tiny dog hair on this white yarn that was really destructing. okay. notonly have we straightened and smoothed that
up but we've followed the line of vs aroundso it isn't nearly as noticeable where the end of the bind off is. then you can justweave in the inside of the sock and no one will be the wiser, that is it. huh! okay. that's everything you need to know,all the techniques used in the socks. yeah, i can't wait to see your finished items. havefun knitting it. good luck.