Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 15:21:42 +0100 From: Arthur Stanley To: "'spamily@io.org'" Subject: Socks knitted by and for a guy. Hi Greetings from Ireland. I always knit my socks plain, boaring and comfortable. I find that a 4 ply wool made by Wendy, with 20% Nylon, 80% wool. This is nice to work with, nice to wear, and very hard wearing. Best of all it is machine washable. Anyway onto the reason I am writing. I'm getting fed up of the amount of time that it takes to knit a pair of socks. (using somewhat over two balls of 4 ply wool per sock, I also use metal needles cause the bamboo ones are not available in Ireland.) My question is is there any simple machine which can be used to knit the main tube and body of the sock. Any ribs and turning of the heel could be done by hand so the functionality that I am looking for is very limited. If I can find something like this then I will go on wearing knitted socks. Otherwise it looks like I'll have to start buying store made socks, and they just are not the same. [Editor's note: if you can help Mr. Stanley, please write to him at the email address above. Thanks.] Anyway I may as well give you the pattern I use for my own socks. This was developed bit by bit over a number of years to get something that fits me well. 4 ply wool. 4 narrow needles. I have no idea what size they are. Cast on 68 stitches putting 24 on two needles and 20 on the third. knit using rib (plain,purl,plain,purl) for 20 full rows. Then switch to plain only. After 25 full rows, decrease one stitch on each of the needles that have 24 stitches. Knit another 20 full rows. Again decrease one stitch on each of the rows with 23 stitches. Knit another 15 rows. You now have a total of 64 stitches. Transfer 6 stitches from each of the needles with 22 onto the needle with 20. You are now left with two needles with 16 stitches and one with 32. To make the heel I knit a square on the 32 needle in the following manner. Knit one, slip one, knit one and so on. When you turn you purl all of the way back. This gives a very strong heel. To turn the heel after the square has been knitted, I follow this formula. Knit to the middle, knit one more. Knit two together, Knit one more. Turn Purl back to the middle, purl one more, Purl two together, and purl one more. Turn again. where you have turned previously will have a small hole so. Knit to the hole, Knit two together taking one stitch from each side of the hole. Knit one more. Turn Purl to the hole. Purl two together either side of the hole. Purl one more. Turn and carry on the pattern as set out. Now your heel is turned. So you need to catch 16 stitches up each side of the square which you previously made, and so on. When you have finished this process the two needles which you had left aside with 16 stitches each have been knitted together to form one needle with 32 stitches, and the other two needles about 29 or thirty stitches on them, (they are attached to the heel) Then it is a matter of casting off one stitch at the beginning of one row and one at the end of the other every third row. Stop this process when you get the total number of stitches down to 16 on each needle. You are now down to 64 stitches again. I then normally knit the tube on to a point where the end of the tube comes up as far as the beginning of my toes. Then cast off for the toe So this is the process I use to get a nice round toe. Cast off one stitch at the beginning of one 16 stitch needle, the end of the other, and from the beginning and end of the needle with 32 stitches. Knit two rows. Do this process once more. (Now down to 56 stitches total) for the next iteration knit only one row between casting off. Do this three times. Now down to 44 stitches. Now cast off continually until there is a total of 16 stitches left. Place the stitches onto two needles and graft together. And that process is how I knit socks. I do hope you will be able to help me with my inquiry, and look forward to hearing from you. Arthur Stanley. --- This pattern downloaded from Wool Works: the online knitting compendium http://www.woolworks.org/