Cabled socks are some of the coziest socks, don’t you think? Every winter, I feel driven to design new cable sock patterns and this year was no exception!
I designed and knit these cabled socks as a Christmas gift for my partner’s mom. I’m calling this new sock pattern Barbara Socks after her. 😊
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of them, I may receive a small commission. This does not cost you anything and helps keep this blog running. Thank you for your support!
Stitch Pattern
The Barbara Socks pattern has a pair of wide, mirrored cables down the front of the leg and the top of the foot.
The back of the leg is made up of a simple ribbed pattern. This makes them a little bit faster to knit than if there were cables all around. It also makes them easier to get on and off your foot because a ribbed back is stretchier than all-around cables.
The heel flap continues the ribbed pattern, adding slipped stitches for strength. I particularly like this heel flap pattern and may reuse it in another design soon!
Yarn
The Yarn I Used
Like I mentioned in my post about my Smush brioche hat pattern and in my post about my favorite knits of 2020, I love souvenir yarn. I love to visit local yarn stores in the places I visit. It brings me a special kind of joy to work with the yarn I have bought on vacation.
Especially when I can’t travel due to a global pandemic!
I decided to design this cable sock pattern with a beautiful skein of hand-dyed tweed yarn I bought during a visit to New York City for my birthday in 2019. I used a fingering weight tweed yarn from Chelsea Yarns that, unfortunately, has been discontinued. The line was called Chelsea Luxe Rustic Fingering. It contained 85% wool and 15% nylon, which is a perfect blend for sock yarn that will hold up well to wear.
The colorway I used was called Lilac Bloom. 💜
The Yarn I Recommend
You can use just about any fingering weight sock yarn to knit these cabled socks—just make sure you have about 400 yards / 100 grams of it. One of my favorite sock yarn dyers is Invictus Yarns if you are looking for something hand-dyed and luxurious.
For something on the more affordable end, I think Knit Picks Stroll is one of the best budget-friendly sock yarns. You will need two skeins for this sock pattern if you go with Stroll, since it comes in 50-gram skeins. They even have Stroll Tweed if you like the look of the tweedy bits in the yarn I used!
Where to Purchase
Barbara Socks is available on my website and in my Ravelry shop.