I knit a lot of these Fair-Isle socks. I just make up the patterns as I go along. Basically each stripe is 5 rows, with the 3 middle rows containing the pattern. In general I try to use small pattern repeats of 4 or 6 stiches, a few are more complicated. In the heel and toe I just use plain stripes so that the patterns don’t get broken up by the decreases. Also, I find that doing Fair-Isle in the ankle area sometimes makes them too tight to get on and off.

Tori (age 13) chose the colors for these socks.

If you look closely you’ll see that the 2 socks are similar, but not identical. I think that adds to the fun and makes then a touch more whimsical.

At some point, when I started to make socks I bought about 20 colors of basic sock yarn to start a “sock stash”. Now, when I knit a pair of socks I just use whatever I have in the stash. Every now and then I’ll pick up the odd skein or 2 if I see a color that I don’t have. This is a great idea for using up whatever leftovers you have from knitting other socks.