Ahem...

I knit a pair of socks with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colour Envy yesterday.

I paused during the knit to snap a picture of how I make my hem tops:

This is a high(er) res picture so you may want to click on it to better see the detail.

The light blue yarn is the scrap yarn with which I began the knit. The green tones are the Lorna's Envy. I am working on the 72 needle cylinder, making socks sized Large.

I've done a 3:1 mock rib, that is to say every 4th needle was removed and I began by knitting 40 rows.

Next I replaced the missing needles and knit 2 more rows, stopping with my yarn carrier at 6 o'clock. My rows ALL start at the little red hash mark at 3 o'clock on the machine - so the 2nd row after needles in hasn't quite been finished.

So - to do the hem top - I reach down into the machine and pull up the work from the inside. I am hanging the 1st row knit, onto the last row knit, beginning at my little red hash mark. You can see that this job is much easier if you have used a contrasting colour of scrap yarn.

I use my pick tool to grab and hang the bar of each stitch onto the same needle that originally made it. (I always, always, always, start everything from the red hash mark, so this is easily done without having to try and follow the stitches up 42 rows to see where they line up).I was doing mock rib, so when I'm hanging the first row I will NOT hang stitches on the needles that were absent during the first 40 rows.

I hang the first stitch knit on row one onto the THIRD needle after the red hash mark - not the first. Why - because the first needle after the red mark only formed half a stitch, not a whole stitch, and the second needle after the hash mark was blank, so it is the third needle that completed the first stitch.

Looking at the text numbers and lines I put on the photo in red - #1 is the next stitch that I will hang, and I will hang it on the needle immediately to the left of the stitch I am hanging in the picture. #2 will be the next to the left. Then #3 I will skip one needle and go to the next one to left of it.

And so on. When I get close to the yarn carrier, I will move it forward, past the red hash mark, and crank slowing onto the hung hem - slowly because I now have two stitches on each needle and it will be a bit stiff until the first row is completed and we're back to one stitch per needle.

Hanging the hem is about the only time during sock making that the weights are removed. The weights, hung below, prevent the work from riding up on the needles while the crank cam is lifting the needles to make stitches.

A major boo boo is to forget to put the weights back on after the hem is hung, as the sock will surely fly off the rails on the first crank!

Lorna's Laces Envy revealed

And here is a close-up of the hem top:



You can see little holes where I went from mock rib to stockinette. I leave these because I consider them decorative. However, if I didn't want the little holes - then instead of cranking two rows after replacing the absent needles, I would first lift the bar of the stitch to the right of each naked replaced needle, and hang that bar onto the naked needle to its left. No more holes. And a little extra work ;o)