My Smaug Socks – A Beautiful, Fiery Dragon Inspired Stitch Pattern

I saw the Smaug Socks by Claire Ellen knitted by one of my favorite bloggers, The Knitting Blog by Mr Puffy the Dog. I was drawn to this pattern as it was inspired by Smaug the dragon in Lord of The Rings.

I reviewed, fact checked and updated this post on May 13, 2023.

My beloved Mum is going through chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer and I wanted socks to help her to fight. It may sound strange but the symbolism of a dragon when fighting a battle with cancer seemed apt.

I imagined Mum wearing her Smaug socks in the Chemo ward and having the strength of a dragon to help her. 

Looking at the intricate stitches in the Smaug socks made me think “these socks are going to be a challenge.” 

I was determined and had coral Yarn Trader Studio skinny sock yarn left over from my Slip Love Knit Shawl project. The burnt orange color of the yarn suited the dragon theme and orange is one of my Mum’s favorite colors.

I bought Claire’s pattern and read the Skill Level section. It includes basic top-down sock construction, cabling, textured stitches, and chart reading.

I thought okay, I don’t identify with being an intermediate knitter but perhaps I am. I was fine with basic top down construction. Textured stitches would be okay and the chart was easy enough to understand. I was ready to have a red hot go!

The pattern is written using Double Pointed Needles. My sock knitting experience so far has been using circular needles and the magic loop method. For more information on these wonderful tools, read my post. When it came to the gusset it took me a while to translate how to the magic loop method. 

Fortunately Claire included a diagram of how the stitches would be set up on three double pointed needles. Using stitch markers, I translated the stitches on three double pointed needles to 2 needles/magic loop.

I was proud of myself being able to work this out. It’s a satisfying experience when your brain cells work hard for your knitting projects!

The cable section for the representation of the dragon’s tail threw me. The instructions in the chart were C3F and C3B. Tutorials for this technique without a cable needle were hard to find. I worked it out after much experimentation. This learning helped in my pair of socks in this project.

There are separate instructions for the Left Foot and Right Foot. I worked through the pattern for both socks but noticed that they did look a little different in the end.

These were much more challenging than my Hermione’s Every Day pair of socks.

I probably made some mistakes along the way but they still looked gorgeous. The best thing about these socks is my Mum loves them. She appreciates the choice of pattern and she’s received compliments when in the chemo ward.

My Mum is expected to fully recover from her breast cancer. I hope once her treatment has finished, she never has to have chemotherapy again. May her Smaug Socks continue to bring her strength and comfort.

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