Skill Level:
Intermediate or advanced beginner.
Knit from the toe up.

To work this pattern you should be familiar with circular knitting on double pointed needles, know how to make increases and decreases, and how to do a yarn over.

The lace pattern is both charted and written out.

The pattern is written for four needles (the sock on 3 and knitting with the fourth), you’ll need an extra needle or two during the heel turn.
I recommend knitting both socks at the same time. This requires an extra set of needles, BUT if you’ve knitted 1 sock at a time you may have already ended up with 2 socks of slightly (or greatly) differing sizes……. or may have ended up with 3/4 of a pair of socks because you got sick and tired of knitting the same thing all over again… the latter was my problem until I adopted the two-at-the-same-time method.

Please read through the entire pattern before you begin knitting to make sure you understand the instructions. If you have a question, comment, or correction please contact me through Ravelry at user: szzn1225

The lace pattern is based on “Frost Flowers” from Barbara Walkers first Treasury of Knitting Patterns (www.schoolhousepress.com). I’ve simplified it a bit by eliminating a few yarn overs and knit-2-togethers.

The method of increasing for the instep is a simplified version of Cat Bordhi’s “Upstream” sock from her book “New Pathways for Sock Knitters.” The increase occurs on each side of the lace panel along the top of the foot, and starts sooner than a normal gusset which is increased every other round… this sock has gusset increases that occur every third round.

The big secret of this sock is that you can place the instep increases anywhere on the instep, top, bottom, side… absolutely anywhere. I’ve included a toe-up formula on the last page to encourage experiments.

This sock starts with Cat Bordhi’s Personal Footprints cast on which you can learn here.
The same link appears in the PDF pattern under “Cast On and Toe” in a clickable box with an orange outline.