Each time I publish a pattern, people ask me “how did you
think of it?” and then seem surprised by the length of my answer. Designs don’t burst from my head fully formed
like Athena, they evolve over a long time.
Of all my patterns, Wraptor has the longest and curviest history.
The pattern is available here, on knitty. There’s also a companion document rich with
special features (charts, tips and tricks, etc.) available here on Ravelry.
1 – Inspiration
The original inspiration came from this sock pattern in
knitty 2009:
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Skew (© Lana Holden, 2009) |
Coolest. Sock. Ever.
Amazing.
Inspiring. Jealousy-provoking
(the highest compliment, by the way, coming from one designer to another).
Even before Skew came out, though, I’d always enjoyed spiral
and helix motifs. I have several designs
based on helix knitting (Double Heelix, Metamorph, Helix
Herringbone Hat). I wanted to make a sock with a steep curving slope - sort of like Skew, but more like a barber pole. I assumed I'd approach this via multi-strand helix knitting, but the closest I got to my vision was this baby sock which uses 12 strands over only 40 sts.
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© Jeny Staiman, 2009 |
Here’s a picture of an 8-strand helix tube:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2009 |
That’s a lot of
live strands! And still not a very steep
curve. Imagine how many more strands I’d
have to use to get at least 45-degree angle… this was too much of a pain (yes,
even for me).
End of story, or so I thought. But as it turns out, life is composed of many
unrelated overlapping threads…
2 - Genesis
In August 2011 I embarked on my first yarn-bombing project:
knitting covers for my co-workers’ headphones.
The back story of this project is documented in an earlier blog
post. Because there were big ear pieces
on either end of the cradle, I wouldn’t be able to slide the cover on after it
was knitted – it would have to be worked flat and grafted on. One of the first ones I made was this one:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2011 |
While I was working the strip for these headphones I wondered
what I’d get if I worked it on the bias.
During the graft, the strip spun around the headphones like a barber
pole, and I thought “A-HA!” This was how I could get that steep sloping
sock I envisioned.
But… knitting a plain tube was one thing; knitting a heel,
toe, and instep shaping was quite another matter. This would take some more thought.
3 - Synthesis
The heel: After
some more messing around, I realized that I could work a gigantic vertical
buttonhole where the heel would be, then come back later and pick up sts
and work the heel. It just so happens
that a few socks based on this construction have since been published by other
designers in the last few months, for instance this one by Margie Mitchell:
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Candy Cane Christmas Stocking, © Margie Mitchell, 2013 |
(More on this topic at the end of this post.)
Even though picking up stitches around a hole was a viable solution
to the heel construction, it wasn’t the approach I wanted to take. Inspired by Skew, I wanted the heel to be
integrated into the construction, offset along with the rest of the fabric. So I continued looking for alternative
solutions.
Sometime after this, I realized that instead of inserting a
giant buttonhole, I could insert a bulge, just by using some
strategically-placed increases and decreases – a mitered decrease sandwiched
between an increase on one side and a decrease on the other. In November 2012 I made my first full-scale
prototype testing my hypothesis:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2012 |
The toe: Once I’d
realized how I could create a heel, I realized I could apply the same
construction logic to insert a toe at one end.
In December 2012 I made this prototype, in which a wedge toe was offset
from the diagonal in a way similar to the heel:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2012 |
Unfortunately there were a number of problems with this prototype. First, the ankle/leg shaping was horrible,
which is evident in the image below:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2012 |
Second, the orientation of the toe was dependent on the
length of the foot. There was no way to
control for the toe lining up in the right place. I got lucky on this iteration, but with feet
an inch larger or smaller than mine, the wedge might run as much as 90 degrees
off. So I would have to come up with a
toe that would fit the same way in any orientation.
Toe tests:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
The instep: My
first thought about the instep shaping turned into this prototype:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
Mathematically it was a cool approach, but visually I didn’t really
love the jog in slope across the instep.
Instep tests:
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
4 - Refinement
The fit: Most
designs I can work out in a few iterations in small scale, but not this
one. I needed to try it on and
experience the fit for myself. It was
time-consuming and anguishing when, after hours and hours of knitting, I’d slip
it on and it still wasn’t right. The
problem I kept experiencing was fabric under stress on the left side of the
heel shaping.
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
Eventually I figured out that I could just add more stitches
where the fabric was stressed. And, since
the stressed area of the fabric was in a place where I was doing decreases, I simply
reduced the number of decreases, which put much less stress on the fabric.
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
The yarn: Somewhere
in the midst of all this iteration, I found the PERFECT yarn. I wanted a self-striping yarn that would give
me big bold stripes even when worked over 200+ stitches. Ordinary self-striping yarn would give me
thin stripes at best. I discovered Twisted Fiber Arts from a
Ravelry ad and found their long-repeat self-striping yarn, and then I knew what
my sock would look like!
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Left to right: Self-striping LeCirque colorway from Twisted Fiber Arts’ website (© Meg Campbell-Crawley, 2013); Wraptor (© Jeny Staiman, 2013)
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5 - Scaling
Figuring out how to make Wraptor fit anyone other than me was
a nightmare, but armed with a measuring tape, an Excel spreadsheet, and the
data from my 11 rock star test-knitters, I did eventually manage to come up
with a variety of sizes.
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
It was especially challenging to come up with a means of
simply and coherently expressing the stitch counts for each size. Since the stitch counts varied across two
simultaneous dimensions (foot width
and foot length), this made it
extremely complicated. Using a constant
(“F”) to account for the individual variability of foot length was the key
here.
6 - Documenting
I generally have a difficult time keeping the length of my
patterns down, because there’s always so much detail I want to share. Wraptor quickly grew to an obscenely
unmanageable length. I decided to put
the bare minimum in the pattern and release a companion document with all the
special features (aptly named “Director’s Cut,” available on Ravelry).
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© Jeny Staiman, 2013 |
7 - Confluence
One of the most interesting aspects of designing knitted
projects is seeing different interpretations of similar concepts. When I started the process of working on
Wraptor, I couldn’t find anything like it.
The closest thing I found was this:
Peppermint Sticks is worked flat on the bias for the cuff,
but the rest of the sock is worked in-the-round like a standard sock. Very creative approach!
In November 2013 (while Wraptor was in the final stages of
editing) I discovered Exotic Whirlpool
by Natalia Vasilieva, which feels to me a bit like the separated-at-birth
sibling of Wraptor.
Little did I know that while I was busy working out the
details of Wraptor, another designer in Russia was captivated by the same basic
concept! Like Wraptor, Exotic Whirlpool
is constructed entirely of a flat piece of fabric worked on the bias that is wrapped
around the foot and grafted – but Natalia took a very different approach to the
heel, toe, instep shaping, sizing, and documentation. You should definitely check it out!
In the last few months, I’ve spotted a few more designs
based on similar construction, each developed independently as far as I know.
I think it’s pretty cool that more designers are starting to
explore sideways, diagonally-knit socks.
Granted, I’m a bit biased. ;)