a comparison of socks

My great-grandmother was born in Ireland in 1875. She came to America when she was 19. This picture of her holding my grandfather dates from 1906.

I'm certain that she was already an accomplished knitter by the time she came to America. My mother has childhood memories of her knitting socks (as do I). What I don't know is when the pattern for the socks in question dates from. Is it a pattern she learned from her mother before she came to America? Did she learn it here? Did she make it up herself? I'll never know. She had certainly been knitting it for a long time, since she was blind by the time she made this pair in the early 1960's.

This is the woman who taught me to knit as a child, and I wanted to reproduce her pattern. I carefully counted the stitches of my mother's socks, and this is the result:

Grandma Naughter’s Sock Pattern

Size 0 needles

Cast on 68. Make 20 rows of K2 P2 rib. (2 inches)

(P2 K4) 8 times.

(P2 m1 K2 m1) twice, (P2 K4) twice to complete round = 72 stitches.

Make 6 rows of P2 K4.

(P2 cable 2F P2 K4) 6 times.

Continue in pattern (rows 1-7: P2 K4; row 8: P2 cable 2F P2 K4…) for 6 inches = 8 cable twists. 

P2 K4 for 4 rows past the last cable twist.

Position needles:

Heel: 3K 2P 4C 2P 4K 2P 4C 2P 4K 2P 3C = 32 stitches.

Needle 2: 1C 2P 4K 2P 4C 2P 4K 1P = 20 stitches

Needle 3: 1P 4C 2P 4K 2P 4C 2P 1K = 20 stitches. 

Make slip stitch heel flap. Turn heel. Knit gusset, reducing to 64 stitches total. Knit instep in pattern and remaining stitches plain.

Continue in pattern until sock = 4 inches from point of gusset.

Knit 2 inches (or amount needed for correct length) plain. Decrease for toe.

Here is a picture of my sock and Grandma's sock:

Although I used the finest commercial sock yarn I could find, my yarn is much bulkier than the original sock. The stitch size is correct, so I think the needle size is correct, but this makes the finished fabric much denser. Also, because the yarn is thicker, when I discontinued the cabling on the foot, I decreased to 60 stitches because the diameter of the sock spread out too much to be comfortable on my foot. 

I am very pleased with how the sock turned out, even though it is not as delicate as the original. For my next pair I will spin my own yarn so that I can more closely match the original.

white on white

I made a second weaving sample with my natural and dyed Finn (see the previous post):

Starting at the bottom of the photo, I have 10 natural, 10 dyed with lily of the valley leaves, 10 natural and 10 dyed warp threads. The weft, starting at the left, is 4 stripes each dyed, then  natural. Each stripe is approximately 15 threads.

The purpose of the sample was to see if the color change was more noticeable with wider stripes than my first sample. I would say yes, but it is not completely successful.While the changes in weft threads are easy to see (at least in person), the change in warp threads is not. The piece looks striped, not checked.

My first sample was 28 tpi warp and 14 tpi weft. This sample is almost the opposite - 12 tpi warp and 30 tpi weft. I think it might be easier to see the change in both directions if it was an even weave. However, I have run out of dyed thread, so I won't be able to make a third sample.

With these pieces I have learned that the spacing of the warp and weft can make a real difference to the look and feel of the final fabric. Also, with the more widely spaced warp threads I had no problem with the threads sticking together, as happens with closely spaced wool warp (and no sizing).