Hello everyone and welcome back to Gage Hill Crafts. My name is Sarah and today I have a knitting project for you, specifically a how-to in the form of a let's call it a knitting recipe more than a pattern. So this is something I've been doing for a few years. I like to make warm, comfortable sleeping socks that you can wear around the house. And actually you can wear these in a large oversized boot as well. So here in Vermont it obviously still gets quite cold in the wintertime and we're a shoe-free household. So take off your shoes when you come in. And of course you're freaking get cold, especially because we do not have radiant heat flooring. So the floors can make kind of chilly. And also at night I like to keep my feet nice and toasty. So these are really great for that. And I'm just going to walk you through roughly how you go about knitting these and then I'm going to link to a blog post below where you can get three different sizes that I've figured out. I've only calculated these specific sizes because they're the ones that I need. So it's my size which is a women's size 9 foot, a slightly smaller size 7 women's foot and then a roughly size 10-11 men's foot. So let's talk about materials and then I'll go over the different options for sizes. So the yarn that I'm using for these is a heavy, worsted or air and weight yarn. It's a 2 ply and it's by a company called Country Classic. It's called yarn for socks spelled SOX and it's 80% wool, 20% nylon. It comes in a 4 ounce or 113 gram hank. So that's what it looks like. I will link to at least one Etsy shop below where you can buy this. That's the tag. It can be a little bit difficult to find but I think any kind of hard-wearing tough air and weight yarn would do. I like this yarn because it has a high twist and it has the nylon content. So it wears very well. I have a couple of pairs, actually I'm wearing a pair right now while I'm shooting this video that I've had for several years and given that I wear them every day around the house and then sleeping them as well, they do hold up pretty well over time. So given that this is an air and weight yarn knit on a size 5 needle, it's a pretty stiff gauge and you'll notice here in this photo comparatively how much larger the gauge is compared to your standard fingering weight sock. If I hold these up next to each other, it's probably 3 or 4 to 1 difference in ratio. But that also means that these socks can be knit very quickly. I can crank out a pair in about 6 knitting sessions so one pair would take me about a week to knit which is really nice especially if you're trying to knit something for a gift. It's not going to take you as long as it would knit something in a smaller gauge. Now this yarn says on the back of the tag that it's made in Canada exclusively for accessories unlimited out of glass and burry Connecticut. I don't know if that company is still in business but you can find this yarn around. You might have to do a little bit of hunting. But if you can find something similar, that would be fine too. I like the heathered kind of color so if you can see the tonal colors there, my camera will pick that up. But this one has sort of, it's like a blue color but then it has purple and greens in it as well. And I also really like the price. You can get this for about eight or nine dollars per hang. So it's not an expensive yarn and you get enough to make a pair of women socks and then some. So for a pair of men socks, you'll need a whole hang and then a little bit more depending on the size of the foot. And what I do to kind of work around that, so for the women's sizes, I just use up. And then I usually have a little bit leftover about about so much, maybe half an ounce or something. And then I can use that for the toes and the heels on a men's pair. So you'll see this pair has red because that was a color that I knit for my mom and gave to her. And I had a little bit of that red leftover from her pair to finish this pair for Rick. So that's about what you'll need in terms of amount of materials. And then you can just knit these on any small diameter technique that you like. So if you prefer double points, which is what I like to knit socks on, you can use those. You can use a small circumference circular. You can use a long circular cable needle and do magic loop method, whatever works for you. Like I said, this is more of a recipe than I had to step by step kind of a pattern. And then the construction for these is top down. So I like to start at the top with a very loose cast on so that I can make sure I can get my foot in here and get this all the way around my heel. I knit for around 11 to 14 rows of 2x2 ribbing at the top. Then I knit the leg. I do a garter stitch short row heel for the heel. This is a very easy garter stitch short row heel. I'll also link to an online tutorial where she walks you through how to do this heel step by step. And I like it because it's easy. And it also makes a cushier heel. As well as a narrower kind of back of the sock. Everyone in my family seems to have kind of a narrow heel. And we run into a problem where there's kind of too much fabric back here sometimes. And it'll kind of bunch up or create sag in the sock. So I like the garter stitch short row heel because it takes up a bit of that excess fabric. You could also sub in another kind of heel. Just be aware that that might use more less yarn than the garter stitch short row. But if you prefer a different kind of heel by all means, you can sub that in. Then you just knit down and then you knit a very basic decreasing every other round kind of toe. And then you catch the last few stitches on the very point. And then you're done. Now in terms of the gauge of these socks, what I like about them is that they're very tight and very stiff. And that helps them stay upright. A few years ago in one of their pattern collections, what was then called Mason Dixon knitting, it's now called modern daily knitting. They released a pair of sleeping socks and even the cover photo for the pattern showed a leg with the sock sliding and puddling. And while it gives a certain cozy aesthetic, I hate socks that fit like that because I kick them off in my sleep. They're always falling down. My ankles get cold, all this stuff. So I actually don't think that that's a very practical kind of fit for your sock. I like a sock that's nice and tight and stays up. And that's exactly what these do. So if you knit them at this nice tight gauge, it also helps them wear longer. So it cuts down on the amount of friction of the socks like scooting around in your house shoe or the friction as you're walking across the floor. And so that really helps too. The other thing is that these are very nice and warm and thick. So if you're like Rick and you do chores and you have kind of oversized boots or they're slip on kind of muck boots, this sock can be nice in the winter time. Because it really fills up that gap inside the larger boot and gives you some extra cushioning and some extra warmth there during the winter time. So that's it for my sleeping socks guide and recipe. Again, I'll give you three different sizes with the measurements for the cast on, the number of rows of ribbing, the length of the leg, the number of unworked stitches that you use for the garter stitch heel and the length of the foot and then the number of unworked stitches as you do the toe would be crease before you catch your. Those will be your guide markers or your waypoints as it were. And then you can adjust things like the length of the foot if it's not quite right or the number of cast on stitches if you're in between the sizes that I'm going to be giving you. I'd love to know if you make these. Let me know you can tag gay chill crafts on social media or send me an email and we'd love to hear from you send pictures and post them. I'm not going to post this pattern on ravioli. I just don't have the, I don't know, inclination to post more free patterns there. And so this is really my gift back to you, the YouTube viewers and the blog readers to get this for free. And again, I just want to say thank you for tuning in again as we kind of restart our channel and we'll bring you more next month. Thanks and take care. Bye.