the Soxophone Player

When you’re hanging a hem its important to line up your stitches. Otherwise you will get a twist in the hem.

When I do my standard hem top socks you may recall I do 40 rows in mock rib, replace the missing needles, do 2 more rows and then hang row 42 onto row 1.

And you may also recall, that as I begin to knit the second row, I place the beginning tail of yarn under the needles to knit it in as I go, which saves sewing the tail in at the end of the work.

I started this sock, as always, with the scrap yarn and the sock yarn pulled through between Needle Z and Needle A at the red hash mark. (This is Regia Silk, on the Verdun 47 machine, 72 needle cylinder.)

So the first stitch to knit in the sock yarn was on Needle A, as I knit counter clockwise.

To find that first stitch 42 rows later, follow the tail of the scrap yarn. There will be a bit of a hole and then the first stitch of the sock yarn. And if you look carefully at Stitch #1 down against the green scrap yarn, you will see it has  a second bar of the sockyarn angling upwards and to the left of the stitch. That extra bar is from where I laid the tail of the yarn on the needles to knit it in. Looking for that little special configuration makes it very easy to locate the first stitch.

Now I take the bar of the first stitch and hang it (the horizontal bar, not the extra bar that angles up).

The stitch was made by needle A and the bar follows the stitch counter clockwise. So I hang it on the first needle counter clockwise to Needle A.

BUT WAIT! The next needle after A is X. And that needle wasn’t present when I knit the first row because I was in mock rib. I only put needle X in place after row 40.

So I hang the bar of Stitch 1 onto Needle 1, which was the first needle to knit after A.

I hope that didn’t come out more confusing than it is!

Another helpful thing to watch – since I was knitting the mock rib in 3 to one, you can clearly see, in both the sock and the scrap, vertical rows of 3’s. And when you hang the hem you are putting each group of three bars onto the corresponding group of 3 needles. AND the bar on the first of each group of three stitches is much bigger than the other two, since it skipped a needle when being made.

And since I always begin knitting at the right red hash mark, and I always set up my 3:1 mock rib so that there is ONE needle after the hash mark and two before it, then it ALWAYS works out that the first stitch I hang goes onto the third needle after the hash mark. (not the first needle – which made the stitch, and not the second needle, which wasn’t present when I did the mock rib.)

(This is a review/revision of a tutorial in my ‘old’ blog.)

I am working on the 54 cylinder in a 3:1 mock rib set up – ie, every 4th needle removed. (But since 4 doesn’t divide evenly into 54, I have two sets of of 4:1 needles – which I  always place between the yellow heel marks and red hash marks.)

My standard knitting has the the yarn in the heel spring at all times – personal preference. I use the spring while I knit up the scrap yarn BUT I  don’t put the sock yarn  in the heel spring until AFTER the first round.

I always, always, always, begin knitting at the right red hash mark ( asterisked in the photos).  And when I set up my needles to do the 3:1 (in 54 and 72 cylinder), I have it so that at the red hash mark one of the three needles is counter clockwise to the red mark, and two are clockwise to it. I do this the same way every time  as it makes finding the first stitch ever so much easier when I go to hang a hem.

(Counting: I don’t use row counters. I count out loud. Since I start at the red hash mark, that where I count….every time the yarn carrier passes the red mark I count. And if I have to DO something, like add needles, hang a hem, start a heel – I stop the yarn carrier at 6 o’clock so that the needles at the red hash mark aren’t engaged in the cams….so if I want to do something after 12 rows, I count to 11 and stop at 6 o’clock. )

I cut the scrap yarn and thread the sock yarn through the yarn carrier AT the red hash mark. I hold both tails together and MAKE SURE that the scrap yarn is under the hook of the needle BEFORE the hash mark, and the sock yarn is under the hook of the needle AFTER the hash mark. I hold the tails while I begin to knit the first few stitches. BUT, as soon as those two needles are almost down, I put a little downward pressure on the tails I am holding.  In fact I usually move my thumb/forefinger up closer to the needles and push down. (If you push down in the very beginning there is a chance the yarn won’t catch the hook. But if you aren’t putting a little downward pressure when the first stitches are completed there is a chance they will slip off the machine.

As I complete the first row, I grab the leading tail of the sock yarn and hold it under the hooks of the needles so that the tail will knit itself in as row 2 begins to knit. Don’t start on the first needle with the tail – if you knit onto the same needle that made the stitch it will drop – start with the tail under the hook of the 2nd needle.

This little exercise accomplishes two things – first, you have no tail to weave in in at the end, and second, it will be very much easier finding the ‘first stitch’ when you go to hang your hem.

When I get near 12 o’clock position (ish) I hold the leading tail into the cylinder, and knit a stitch of two more.

It is at this point that I engage the heel spring on the yarn.

Now I can motor on knitting my mock rib hem top.

You need to knit twice as many rows as you want for your final top. My personal choice is 40 (and then 2 rows once the missing needles are replaced and I switch from mock rib to stockinette).  This is a personal design decision; and a ‘how much yarn have ya got’ too. But I find this size looks good to my eye in proportion to the rest of the sock.