It all began when two different people asked me “How many stitches should I cast on for a sock?”

The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is…42!

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

But that really wasn’t what they were asking, you can cast on any number of stitches and knit a sock…what they really wanted to know was “with this yarn, these needles and that stitch pattern, how many stitches
should I cast on to get a sock that fits me?” (Even though they didn’t think that information was relevant.)

“Exactly!“ said Deep Thought. “So once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Being me, I then of course had to backwards engineer a sock pattern that used “The Ultimate Answer” as the cast on! But beware…Gauge really does matter!

Sizes : 7 (8, 9) inch circumference. 18, 20, 22 cm
Materials:
Briggs and Little Tuffy 80% Pure Wool/20% Nylon, 215 yards196m 113 gms 4
ounces Shown in Greystone
US 5 3.75mm, or US 6 4mm, or US 7 4.5mm needles for your preferred small diameter in the round knitting, OR size needed to obtain gauge.
OR Any yarn and needle combination to obtain the gauge for your size below.
Notions: Cable needle, stitch markers
Gauges:
Small: 24 sts and 28 rows = 4 inches 10cm
Medium: 21 sts and 26 rows = 4 inches 10cm
Large: 18 sts and 25 rows = 4 inches 10cm