Once upon a time, there lived a gifted shifter. Like many, she could transform fluff into yarn and blankness into color. Like many, her hands could help a thing became its best version. Like only a few, her power was so great that it touched not only stuff but people. This shifter could change sadness into hope, energy into action, strangers into friends. Inside the circle of her heart, people found their best selves.

This shifter was so powerful that change happened all around her, all the time, to much good. But sometimes, without intending it, the flux ate back at herself. To spur a shift, to help others, she would transform herself, in ways small or big. She might smile when she didn’t feel it, serve when she didn’t have the energy, give when she had only herself to give. The changes added up so that, sometimes, she wasn’t sure what she would see in the mirror. Some days, she wondered if she had any self left to recognize.

Our Shifter Socks are a tribute to the gifted shifters in our lives, and a reminder to them—and a path by which—to always return to themselves. Its meandering knit-and-purl motif is mirrored on the right and left foot, and each block of the path changes slightly from the one before it. Made up in a lustrous cashmere blend, these socks are a delight to knit and wear.

Construction: This unisex sock is worked in the round from the cuff down with a heel flap.

Yarn and Yardage: 1 skein Why Knot Fibers’ Siren, a hand-dyed cashmere-blend yarn, or approximately 300(340, 380, 435) yards of fingering weight yarn.

Sizes: 7(8, 9, 10) inches around, 7.5(8.5, 9.5, 10.5) inches long from heel to toe, and 6 inches long at the cuff.

To Fit: Women’s Small(Women’s Medium, Women’s Large/Men’s Medium, Men’s Large).

Instructions: The pattern includes both charted and fully written-out instructions.

Thanks: To KRS and BRM, continuing premier knitwear models, and to our wonderful test knitters.