Daisy Chain Socks (Assigned Pooling)

Daisy Chain Socks by Marilyn Woodruff

What Is Being Made

The Daisy Chain Socks are a pair of hand-knitted socks designed by Marilyn Woodruff and available through Knits' End Designs. These socks feature a textured stitch pattern and are offered in three different sizes to accommodate various foot measurements. The design uses an assigned pooling colorway as the primary yarn, combined with a contrasting color accent, creating a visually distinctive finished accessory.

Knitting Techniques and Stitches

This intermediate-level knitting project employs several key techniques and specialty stitches to create its distinctive texture:

• Daisy Stitch: The signature stitch of this pattern, created by working K3TOG-YO-K3TOG into 3 stitches. This technique maintains stitch count while creating an openwork floral-like texture, as no stitches are increased or decreased during the maneuver.
• K2TOG (Knit Two Together): A basic decrease that combines two stitches into one, used for shaping.
• K3TOG (Knit Three Together): A more aggressive decrease that combines three stitches into one, used as part of the Daisy Stitch construction.
• KFB (Knit into Front and Back): An increase technique that creates an additional stitch from a single stitch.
• Yarn Over (YO): A decorative increase that creates intentional openings in the fabric, contributing to the lacy quality of the Daisy Stitch.

All special stitches are demonstrated in an accompanying video, making this intermediate project accessible to knitters who may be less familiar with these techniques.

Yarn and Materials

The Daisy Chain Socks are designed to be knitted with A Chick That Knitz Deluxe Sock yarn, a high-performance sock yarn composed of 85% superwash merino and 15% nylon. This blend provides durability, easy care, and the softness characteristic of merino fiber. The yardage is 393 yards per 100 grams, classified as 4-ply weight yarn.

The pattern calls for one full skein in the assigned pooling colorway (shown in the Blush colorway in the pattern documentation) and one 20-gram mini skein in a contrasting color for accent details. The contrast color used in the sample is Pearl.

Needles and Notions

Construction requires US 1 double-pointed needles (DPNs) in a set of four, or small circumference circular knitting needles of equivalent size. Additional notions include a tapestry needle for finishing and weaving in ends, and one stitch marker to track the beginning of rounds.

Project Characteristics

These socks are described as quick textured socks, indicating they work up relatively rapidly despite their intermediate difficulty level. The three available sizes ensure proper fit across different foot dimensions. The combination of assigned pooling yarn and contrasting color creates intentional color patterning, with the pooling technique allowing the yarn's dyed sections to align in a predetermined way for consistent, attractive color placement across the finished pair.