Varsity Shorty Socks

Written By Lauren Davis

The Varsity Shorty Socks are the perfect quick sock knit—forget knitting all those endless rows of the sock leg and skip right to the heel!

Feel free to get creative with your colour combos: use scraps for the stripes and toes, or choose your school or sports team colours and enjoy creating your perfect pair of custom socks 

Ideal for pairing with sneakers, ankle boots, or just around the house.

Tester Love 

In order to make sure that the patterns you purchase from BBYC are tried, tested, and true, I enlist the generous help of some of my maker friends to try them out first. They made their own unique pair of Varsity Shorty Socks and in the process they help me proofread and troubleshoot the pattern to ensure it is correct and easy to understand before it gets into your hands. Their help is SO important to the process of releasing a great pattern. 

You can head on over to their Instagram pages to show them some love and likes, but for now here are some of their wonderful iterations of the Varsity Shorty Socks:

Jana @cyclingyarnie

Jamie @jlknits1

Want to help test future BBYC patterns? I have both knit and crochet patterns in the works that will come up for testing in the coming weeks and months, and I love to have new people test—a fresh perspective is so important! Subscribe to my newsletter to receive pattern test notifications, and follow me on Instagram for all the sneak peaks of upcoming tests and releases :)

Fit

This pattern comes in three unisex sizes:

Small (8-9” foot circumference)
Medium (9-10” foot circumference)
Large (10-11” foot circumference)

Skills Required

  • Casting on

  • Joining to knit in the round

  • Knit stitch, purl stitch

  • Slipping stitches

  • Picking up stitches

  • Decreases

  • Kitchener stitch

The pattern PDF includes links to YouTube videos explaining all the skills you need to make this beanie, so as long as you can knit and purl, you should be able to navigate the pattern fairly easily. I probably wouldn’t recommend this project for your first knitting project ever, but it would be a great first sock pattern!

Don’t hesitate to reach out via email if the videos don’t click for you and you need a little clarification—I’m happy to help get you on your way to a perfect pair of socks :) 

Materials

Thinking of grabbing the pattern and getting started on your very own Varsity Shorties? Check out this materials list to make sure you’re ready to go:

  • 200-300 yards of sock weight yarn, ideally about 75% of the main colour and 25% in at least one contrast colour

  • Size 1 US / 2.25mm needles (9” circulars, DPNs, or long circulars for Magic Loop technique)

    • If using circular needles, you will need 2 stitch markers (ideally different, so you can differential the BOR marker)

    • If using 9” circular needles, you may also want DPNs or a second circular needle to make working the heel and toe a bit easier

  • Scissors

  • Darning needle

Let’s Get Started!

The Varsity Shorty Socks pattern is available for purchase on Ravelry and Etsy.

Use the hashtags #varsityshortysocks and #birchbarkmakes to share the handmade love on social media, and remember to tag @birchbarkyarncrafts in your projects on Instagram—I am SO excited to see and share your creations! 

xoxo

Lauren

Lauren Davis
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Attic Ladder Cowl Pattern