Make These Insanely Easy and Colorful Knit Socks with Jogless Stripes

Slipped stitches and jogless stripes make for a colorful and visually compelling pair of socks. You’ll wonder at how easy these are to knit!

As I opened my eyes and took in the total darkness that was still outside my window, I realized three things: that it was entirely too early for me to be awake, I was going to need a LOT of coffee that day, and I finally knew what that beautiful yarn that I had bought a few weeks ago was going to be!

I had a decisive list of requirements that I wanted to include.

It took a few weeks to decide what I wanted the design to be, because I had several requirements for the design.

I knew I wanted it to be a two-color sock, so that people could go to their yarn stash and pick out two colors to use together, even if they only had half a skein of a certain color. (Great for some leftovers!)
I wanted it to have jogless stripes that were effortless to make.
I wanted a simple chart, that would be easy even for beginning chart readers!
I wanted it to have a slipped stitch design, since it’s one of the easiest colorwork techniques!
I wanted it to be visually compelling, without too many added techniques, so that it would be suitable for someone who is still near the beginning of their sock knitting career.
I wanted it to be interesting enough to engage the brain for people who were desiring a step up from vanilla knitting, yet simple enough that once you understood the pattern it made great TV or travel knitting.

Whew! That’s a lot to ask of a sock pattern!

Here’s why these visually fascinating socks had an interesting beginning.

So I quickly knit up the socks, wrote the pattern, and then I put them on Ravelry where everyone immediately bought them, right?

The Slippin’ Knit Socks, with mirrored spirals and jogless stripes

Well, no, not quite.

I couldn’t make a decision on a couple of minute details about the pattern. You’d think I was making some important decision on public policy, rather than a sock pattern. A few months passed.

Of course everyone knows that you’re supposed to take notes when you’re making a pattern. I knew I was supposed to take notes. Did I take notes? Of course not! I had to read my sock, and make sure I was writing the pattern so I could replicate it.

The ideas started to flow at that point. What if someone wanted to use self-striping yarn? And also, could I turn these into shorties? It would make them great for summer. Behold:

My testers like to keep me on my toes, so I made this:

The day after the test knitting period started, I woke up to the sound of a notification going off on my phone.

“Could you please make a video to show us the jogless stripes?” one of my testers was pleading.

Instantly I had three thoughts:

I should have known I’d need to make a video.
I hope I remember how to edit and upload a video to Youtube.
At least I don’t have gigantic chips in my nail polish!

Somehow, I made it through. And because the jogless stripes are so ridiculously easy to do, I’ll share it here. (I’ve also included a link to the video in the pattern.)