Adapting Children’s Sock Patterns for Women

For those familiar with Weldon’s Practical Needlework, you know there are hundreds of sock patterns in the various volumes. A number of years ago, Nancy Bush, one of PieceWork’s contributing editors, spent some time in our office pouring over our original volumes of Weldon’s looking for sock patterns for her book Knitting Vintage Socks: New Twists on Classic Patterns (Loveland, Colorado: Interweave, 2005).

On many occasions when I have been looking through Weldon’s, I’ve run across patterns for children’s socks that I just adore. Adapting them into patterns that would fit me is well beyond my skill level. Nancy to the rescue! She ingeniously adapted a number of Weldon’s sock patterns for children into patterns for women for Knitting Vintage Socks.

While Knitting Vintage Socks is no longer in print, we worked with Nancy to select patterns from it for a 2015 PieceWork eBook—Vintage Socks to Knit: 19 Patterns for the Whole Family. And we put the six children’s patterns that she adapted for women into one section.

Left: Fancy Silk Sock; Center: Miranda Pattern Sock; Right: French Sock. Photos by Joe Coca.

These are my favorites:

• Fancy Silk Sock; original pattern for a child of five or six years
• Miranda Pattern Sock; original pattern for a child of two to three years
• French Sock; original pattern for a child of two to three years

Check out Nancy’s eBook and delve into Victorian practical knitting at its best. In addition to the children’s patterns that she adapted for women, there are 16 other sock patterns for babies and children, women, and men. According to Weldon’s First Series of Practical Stocking Knitter, you’ll be glad you did: “Hand-knitted stockings are certainly far more durable, and therefore more economical than woven ones; they are easier to repair, and if well knitted to begin with, and always carefully washed, will bear re footing two or three times, so that practically one pair of hand-knit are as good as three pair of bought stockings. Stocking knitting is pleasant work for winter evenings, as it is not trying to the eyes, nor is it any hindrance to conversation; it also is convenient for taking up at odd moments, and it is astonishing how fast a leg or foot will progress even if worked only just a round or two at a time as opportunity occurs.”

Knit socks!
Jeane