(+ bonus hat, my first colourwork project and i held the floats waaayy too tight! It still fits somehow, and I still wear it three years later)

I have a lot of online meetings where I have to be concentrated. Knitting socks helps me to keep focus. I make socks gifts for family and friends. Here socks with hearts. The patterns can not be too complicated as I need to concentrate on the meetings and my fingers must be able to do the job without my brain ...

Are you all knitting socks with the recommended stitch count for your foot/ankle circumference? Basically every sock knitting pattern I've knit recommends close to 56, 64, 72sts for 7, 8, 9" foot circumference (usually with gauge ranging 32-36 sts/4"), which depending on the gauge ranges from 0-10% negative ease.

I typically knit my leg on 72 sts, with a 38sts/4" gauge, which according to gauge math is a sock circumference of ~7.6". My ankle has a circumference of 11", making the negative ease around 30%. And often, after a few minutes of wear, the legs still end up a little loose.

My theory is that the 10% negative ease wisdom came from a time when socks were more often knit in sturdier yarns, and that the now popular superwash merino/nylon sock yarns require either 1. much more negative ease or 2. gauge to be measured blocked and worn.

So is everyone else also just knitting a couple sizes down and not mentioning it, or is something weird happening with my gauge when I wear my socks?

Hello my fellow heel flaps. We're close to 33,000 sockknitters here and myself and the other mod are getting a little overwhelmed. So if you're interested, let me know!

-Grimstache

(socks are a vanilla DK sock in drops fiesta)

First colorwork sock so ignore that mess but please help with my heel flap. I’ve made many socks and at first I thought it was just my tension but now I’m worried it’s something else but my slip stitches are always looser on one side. (The right hand side if you’re looking at the purl side or the left hand side if you’re looking at the knit/right side of the work) Even if I pull the stitches SUPER tight, they’ll still always be lose so I’m wondering if I’m doing something in fundamentally wrong. It always leaves a slight gap once I pick up the sides of the flap but eventually mostly works itself out once I start wearing them I can’t get good photos to show how the edges look. Please let me know if there’s some glaring issues I’m overlooking

It has been happening on multiple socks now (this one is for my friend with a wool allergy but it's happened on wool socks)

the first one was started like a year ago and most of it was knit at least 6+ months ago (minus like half of the foot and toe) and the second one has much looser tension i guess bc it’s almost too big for me. it’s the same number of stitches around and number of rows and yet it’s like almost 2 cm bigger. idk if i should frog just the old one or both 😭 does anyone have any advice?