Stripey socks

When Sandra was in Oz, she picked up the House & Garden magazine and we poured over it one sunny Saturday afternoon. There was a pattern in her issue (summer 2007, I think?) for some fabulous bed socks by Maya Kelett. Maya was passed the pattern by someone who used it to knit socks for the soldiers in World War II...

The best thing about these socks are: (1) they aren't striped until you lift the foot - I love this! (2) they are very stretchy along the length of the foot. The socks fit both me (fairy, 'Borrower' feet) and my brother's enormous paddle feet (so it probably works best if you knit it out of something with some stretch in the yarn). As a result, it's not so imperitive to knit them to exactly the right foot size...and, hence, good for gifts! And (3) they are knitted flat (left)! The joined-in grey stitches in the middle become the top of the foot. Stitches are picked up by two needles, one on either side, and the stripes for under the foot are worked in rows of garter stitch. A wee bit of decreasing, and then these two halves are joined up with a quick flat seam. Genius.

I am, however, slightly alarmed at how much I love this method. I just spent blooming ages mastering the sock-in-the-round lark and now I'm rebuffing it. I feel like one of those fish that had evolved the complex eye, only to live in a dark cave and drop the eye around its evolutionary corner...   

Comments

[VP]

I'm glad to see the art of bedsocks isn't dead! My nan knitted me a natty pink pair when I went off to Newcastle Uni to combat the perishing cold of the English northern frontier. I never let on to my fellow students (mainly northern) as I was too scared I might be labelled a pansy southerner.

[Danielle]

I love those socks! But - where could I track down the pattern do you think - considering I live in the USA?

[Jess]

Hi Danielle, I'd be very happy to email you a copy of the WWII sock pattern!
I'm sure the copyright-cops will hunt me down and jab me with knitting needles, but it's a risk I'm willing to take! Drop me an email and I'll pass it on (my address is top right of this page).
Jess

[Welcker M-Dominique]

Hello,
Your socks have really looked very comfortable, I live in France and I do not know where I get the pattern.
Could you help me.
Thank you in advance.
M-Do