lostpurl

Here are a few tried and true but interesting to work sock patterns

The first is the famous Blueberry Waffle pattern. Wendy Johnson just did a sock using this pattern. It is the first stitch pattern I ever tried. It looks great in a sock color and breaks up patterned yarns. It has a lot of texture, but is basically ribbing. I have a short attention span for ribbing, but I managed to use this pattern twice, once for a CIC kids sock and once for a pair for my daughter. The pattern is for sports weight yarn, but is easily changed for fingering weight yarn.

Blueberry Waffle Socks

The next is Fluted Bannister Socks. This was a Six Sock KAL sock, but is available to anyone now.
I did this with some opal yarn and even as a raw beginner I was able to change the pattern repeats for use with fingering weight yarn. Nice pattern, it is a bit more difficult then Blueberry Waffle, because the number of knits and purls change each row as the banister twists around the sock. Both of these patterns can be used on the instep without causing you pain if you wear you socks in traditional shoes. I would not carry cables down onto the foot. The cables can really cramp your style inside shoes. It is easy to change the cable pattern to ribbing instead. Or just do a plain foot.

Fluted Banister Socks

Next is Dublin Bay socks. I have not knit this one. But it has a lot of play time around the net. Looks pretty

Dublin Bay

The last one is the Tidal Bay socks I knit for Benne. While not a super simple pattern, it is really interesting pattern to work. It has no tricky parts. Increases and decreases. There are two rows with double decreases that you need to watch for, but other then that it is easy. It is a stretchy pattern, so no fears of not being able to get it over your foot. A fun knit in either solid color yarn or patterned. Jayne I bet this would look brilliant in your hand dyed yarn. Your beautiful blues or the yummy Butterscotch.

Tidal Wave Socks

As soon as I get to feeling alive again, I will post the pattern for the green socks. I wouldn't trust any pattern I posted just now. I am beyond fuzzy

And a final word on negative ease and twisted stitch patterns. I look at a lot of sock knitting blogs. And I can't tell you how many people I see with socks that could pass for compression bandages. The sock is stretched to the screaming point and it is hardly flattering. This happens when you have complex patterns with twist stitches. A pattern repeat of 15 is hard to adjust for a larger foot. Unless you choose to go up a needle size or use a heaver weight of yarn. The twist stitches make the pattern inelastic in the extreme. All you need to do is Google for images of Pomatomus, or Jaywalker and see the problems. The other problem is negative ease. I have a post about negative ease to put up, because unless you have very very skinny legs mostly you can skip this disaster causer.
ramble ramble ramble :-}
I hope the pattern links help people to find something they might want to try.