The socks are mostly stockinette, and have a pattern of intertwining travelling stitches on the top of the foot and up the front of the leg. This is what gave the name of the pattern; both the colour and the twisting pattern reminded me of the way I like to twist up plant fibres into twine when out and about on walks. The stitch pattern is made up of knits and purls, with simple increases and decreases to shift the stitches around and create the motif.
As with my other sock patterns, these are knitted toe-up, which means that it's really easy to use one whole skein of yarn with no wastage. I usually knit my socks two at a time with strands from the centre and outside of the ball, so it's very easy to keep knitting until I run out of yarn. If you like to knit one sock then the other, you can prepare by weighing out your yarn and winding it into two equally sized balls.
The pattern is written for the magic loop method, which adapts really well for whichever order you choose to make your socks in.
The pattern includes a Fleegle heel, which is less common than either the short-row or flap-and-gusset heel, but I believe it combines the advantages of both without some of the downsides. A short-row heel is quite straightforward to work and looks nice and clean, but can stretch out the fabric on the top of the foot as it often doesn't leave enough room. Whereas a flap-and-gusset heel is nice and roomy, but I honestly find it a faff to knit and don't like the way it looks.
The heel on Cordage combines a gusset for extra heel room with decreasing short rows at the back of the heel, forming a neat and attractive v-shape.
The yarn used for this pattern is Annabel Williams' Romney Pure Sock. At 330 metres per 100 grams, it's a nice, robust fingering/4-ply weight. Whilst for garments I might knit this on a 3 mm or 3.25 mm needle (US 2 or 3), for these socks I used 2 mm needles (US 0). This gives a really dense fabric that will be both warm and hardwearing. I've written previously about choosing yarn and knitting for durable socks, and the pattern and yarn choice are intended to take all of those tips into account.
Want to see some of the more technical details? Head over to the pattern page, where you can also buy a copy to start knitting your fun, comfy socks!
