Socks knitted for babies and children are the most ephemeral kind of knitted socks. If they don’t lose them, they swiftly outgrow them. All of the baby sweaters and now toddler things I am knitting remind me of just how quickly Z’s babyhood is passing. She outgrows things, I make more. The outgrown garments serve as physical reminders of her changes.
I persist, perhaps foolishly, with more knitted socks for her. This will be her fifth pair for this year, but I’m making these a wee bit longer and wider than other pairs, hoping that they will fit a little next year rather than being just a little too big this year. 
This is a mashup of my Kiddo Kicks and Prufrocks patterns. I am following the numbers for her size in the Kiddo Kicks (1-3 yr), but I’ve increased a single stitch on the top and bottom to make a better number for Prufrock repeats. I’m repeating the Wave stitch just twice for her size, then finishing the row as specified. These might end up being more like ankle socks since I had only 9.5 grams (40 yards) left when I took this picture. I ended up making the foot a bit longer to allow for more wear in the future.
I have to confess to a very bonehead thing I did on Monday. I pulled up my Prufrock pattern to look at the wave stitch for Z’s socks. In the adult pattern the repeating part of this stitch pattern is worked a total of three times across the foot. For Z’s size I’ll just work it twice. When I was looking at the original pattern it struck me as wrong that I only said to repeat it twice (thinking that it needs to happen a total of three times across the foot, so it should be repeated three times). I was forgetting that it’s done once, then REPEATED twice, for a total of 3 times. I guess in the moment the meaning of “repeat” (meaning it was already done once) was totally lost on me. I issued a correction for the pattern, then about an hour later realized there was nothing wrong with the original, so I issued a correction to my correction. That’s a bit embarrassing…. Ah, well. We’re all fallible human beings.
Oh that’s really cute! It’s something that could totally happen to me as well! 😀
Easily done! I know how often I’ve got ‘worked’ and ‘repeated’ sets of instructions wrapped round my neck!
You can always go with tube socks for little ones, since they’re a bit more flexible in the whole sizing department. I know they’re a bit eighties, but when babies outgrow things so fast one does what one must 😛
I have been considering that for future socks. Jasmine from The Knitmore Girls podcast talks about that all the time. It seems like a great idea and it would make for some truly autopilot knitting!
I just got a project back on track after reknitting the same round wrong twice…without noticing that the row beneath it was totally wrong too.
Grrr. I feel like such a dolt when I do things like that. Glad I had my head on straight when I wrote the pattern anyway.
Love the colors you’ve picked
So admirably ambitious (and beautiful.) I can’t even manage to keep track of my baby’s store bought socks. As a result, we end up wearing mismatched pairs for half the week…
Thank you!
Oh, these are so cute. When I was a kid we had fancy socks (we called them our lacy socks) that we were only allowed to wear with our party shoes (black Mary Janes, if I remember correctly) on special occasions. I would have loved a pair of everyday fancy socks, and even though Z is young, you never know what she’ll remember. Better take a photo of you both in your matching socks, just in case though 🙂
I plan on it! It might be a bit blurry as she’s not often still, but I will capture it. I believe I paired lacy socks with Mary Janes too…seems like a young girl’s right of passage kind of footwear.
the yarn is sooo pretty, perfect for swirly Prufrock waves.