Design Inspiration: Sweetest Heart Socks

I designed my Sweetest Heart Socks as part of a kit for Simply Socks Yarn Company in February of 2012. Six months after its release, the rights reverted to me. I re-released it myself after I had a few test knitters try it out.

It was a fun design to make. Allison assumed that I'd written a ton of top-down sock patterns before, but in fact I had only done one - and that was for a Christmas stocking! We talked about how she wanted the pattern to look and a drew a few sketches. I was originally going to stretch a single heart all of the way across the top/front of the sock.

When I knit the swatch, that turned out not to show up very well. The curve of the foot/leg made it hard to make out the heart shape. I again tried with hearts that were half as wide, and I was very happy with the result.

I added one last heart, centered, on the toe, to be worked during the toe decreases. It made the design feel pretty clever to me.

On Ravelry, I saw a great pair made from this pattern by a lady, Anna-Mia Heikkinen, in Finland. I will never get over how exciting it is to see someone knit a pattern of mine from so many thousands of miles away. She used Cascade Yarns Heritage Solids & Quatro Colors and I think it looks great! I messaged her and she gave me permission to use her photo here.

Copr. Anna-Mia Heikkinen, 2012