Circle Socks pattern designed by Anne Campbell is a really cute free sock pattern. Love the finished socks. Although, it took me a long time to actually finish the pair.
I am embarrassed to admit that I started these beautiful socks at least a year ago. I knit the first sock. I admired the lovely texture and tried it on. Then it went into a box labelled, Circle Socks, WIP (Work in Progress), where it languished unfinished on top of the bookcase in my Studio, as I got swept away on a different wave of motivation, inspired by a new pattern or yarn.
Until, finally, the day came when I opened my sock drawer and looked at my socks. Some that had looked beautiful when they were first knit, had faded, others had developed holes, yet more had felted/shrunk over time to the point where I really cannot pull them on without cutting off the circulation to my feet (not a good idea). But there is a problem, it takes a bit of time to knit a pair of socks and time, as usual, is limited.
I wanted 6 pairs of new socks to replenish my sock drawer. Then it struck me, how many socks I wanted to knit, at least 12 socks, hmm… as I pondered this dilemma, I thought of all of my socks suffering from Single Sock Syndrome. I pulled out the boxes and felt moved to action. After all, there is a wonderful thing and seldom mentioned bonus attached to Single Sock Syndrome – I only need to knit one sock to have a pair! How wonderful is that?
The Circle Sock was the first of these single socks that I decided to turn into a pair.
I used gorgeous 4-ply sock wool that I bought from Flamboyance Yarns a couple of years ago. This is 100% wool so I will have to remember to hand wash these socks. The yarn is wonderful to knit with and I love the way it looks so different in the textural section of the leg, as I turned the heel and the broader swirl of the foot. I love the textural slip stitch of the leg. It is so cute.
I made a couple of changes to the sock. I cast on using 2.75 mm double-pointed needles. I did 4 1/2 repeats of the pattern for the leg instead of the full 5. Next time, I would probably do the 5 or even 5 1/2 repeats of the slip stitch pattern.
When I did the heel, I used my usual slip stitch heel rather than the Eye of Partridge. I’ve no idea why I decided to do this when I knit the first sock, but I felt the second sock should be the same as the first one. Other than this small change I continued with the pattern for turning the heel and knitting the gusset. I knit 36 rounds for the foot. Then as I approached the toe, I decided to make another change. I decided on a Spiral Toe.
Spiral Toe
Make sure the stitches are evenly spread over the 4 double-pointed needles, with 16 sts on each needle.
Abbreviations: sl1 – slip 1 stitch; k – knit; psso – pass slip stitch over the knitted stitch; dpn – double pointed needle
- Round 1: *sl1, k1, psso, knit to next dpn, then repeat from * on each of the other 3 dpns.
- Round 2: k
- Round 3: *k1, sl1, k1, psso, knit to next dpn, then repeat from * on each of the other 3 dpns.
- Round 4: k
- Round 5: *k2, sl1, k1, psso, knit to next dpn, then repeat from * on each of the other 3 dpns.
- Repeat this spiralling pattern until 8 stitches remain, then cut the yarn, gather the remaining stitches with the yarn and weave in the yarn ends.
I love the finished Circle Socks and will definitely knit them again, next time, I shall follow the pattern more fully instead of going off on a tangent, as it seems unfair to review a sock pattern when I have made so many tweaks and changes. The other change will be that I shall use a sock yarn that doesn’t need to be hand washed, as I long ago realised, that handwashing socks every day doesn’t really work for me.
When I had finished knitting the pair of Circle Socks, I was interested to check how much of the 100g skein of yarn I had used. It took 86g of sock yarn to knit this pair of socks.
Please help. I am trying to do Anne Campbells circle sock pattern, but it comes out all wonky.
The pattern says to:
Knit 3 rows of P,
Do 6 rows of K3 sl 2,
3 more rows of P,
Do 6 row of K6 sl 1
This makes a row of small circles (3 stitches wide) followed by a row of larger circles (6 stitches wide. It also doesn’t work in evenly with 64 stitches in the round.
Why do all the pictures show a neat even honeycomb pattern when it isn’t written that way? Did you modify the pattern?
I made these for myself using I Knit or Dye yarn, and love them. That is, now they are finally finished as they also took me about a year to complete, inbetween all the other stuff that has to be done. (And they are wonderfully cosy!) Love the colours in your version as well as the spiral toe. I think mine took about the same yarn quantity as well.
I thought the circle pattern could make a nice cuff on the right sort of jumper
Hi Helen
I completely agree with you about how cosy these socks are. I have been thinking that they would make wonderful slipper socks. The circle pattern would be gorgeous edging a jumper, I thought of using it to as a cuff on mittens or gloves. I thought it would be wonderfully warm around my wrists. I have sampled a slightly changed version for this to make the cuff less bulky using 4ply alpaca yarn which feels lovely. I enjoyed reading your comment and appreciate you leaving it. Happy Knitting, Nicolette