I was sure I had posted this here before, but apparently I did not. :( So here it is, possibly again? These are called Shaker Socks because this method of sock construction, while not invented by the Shakers, they were the among first ones to use this method to mass produce socks for their own use and for sale using circular knitting machines. Socks made using this construction method became known as Shaker Socks. The Shakers, formally known as The United Society of Believers in Christs Second Coming, were a utopian society that was active in the U.S. From about 1790 until the last of the old order Shakers died out around 1980 or so. There are a handful of new order Shakers practicing the same religious beliefs and lifestyle as the old order Shakers did, but I havent heard anything about them in ages, so they may have disappeared again, too. :( The Shakers believed, among other things, in simplicity in all things and that striving for perfection and high-quality, conscientious productivity was a compliment and a devotional to their creator. Basically, everything they did they considered to be a form of worship. They quickly became known for the high quality of the goods they produced, including the knitted wool socks they sold to what they referred to as the world (that would be all of us non-Shakers!) Enjoy! Shaker Socks By Eric J. Wolff Im a major proponent of Shaker Socks. I like them for a lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons is that you can use up every inch of yarn you have in a pair of socks. That can be really useful if you have a limited quantity of a special yarn that youre not sure how big a pair of socks you can make from it.... Handspun yarn comes to mind if you only have a limited quantity. Its similar to when hand-knitters divide yarn in half and knit a toe-up sock and knit the leg until they run out of yarn. In short, you knit a straight tube on the machine and then add the toe, heel, and cuff by hand. The method is a good one to use if you either havent mastered heels and toes on the machine yet, but you still want to make socks with it. Or if you have an early machine that only knits tubes. Or if you like hand-knitting socks, but dont want to do the boring parts--the leg and the foot--by hand. You let your machine do those parts and do the fun bits, the heel, toe, and cuff, by hand. Knit a tube on the machine with 100 to 150 grams of sock yarn in the tension that works best for you. You can use less yarn, if you want, and end up with short socks or slippers. Just knit one long tube and run it off the machine onto waste yarn. (The Shakers would knit one endless tube, splicing the yarn as they went, and then cut the tubes to length and finish them). With a hot iron and a damp cloth, steam press each end of the tube and a few inches in the center of the tube. Fold the tube in half so youll know where the exact center of it is. Clip a stitch at that center-point and unravel that row so that you end up with two tubes that are exactly the same length with open stitches on both ends. Pickup the stitches on one end of the tube with knitting needles. You can use double-points or magic loop or two circs or whatever method you like best. Youll have to guess at what size needles will give you approximately the same gauge as the rest of the tube, but, honestly, its not that critical. Close enough is good enough. Taking the free end of yarn from the other end of the tube, knit a toe on the stitches you just picked up, unraveling those stitches from the opposite end of the tube as you need yarn to knit the toe. Knit whichever type of toe you like--doesnt matter. I like to knit a round toe at this point because it makes placing the heel in the next step easier. Now, youll have two tubes of knitting, each with a toe at one end and open stitches at the other. Lay the tube along your foot, lining up the toe on the sock with your toes. Decide which row you need to cut to open up the tube for the heel. Generally speaking, you open up that tube right below your ankle bone. Clip a stitch and carefully unravel *half* of that row, picking up the stitches onto needles as you go. If you didnt knit a round toe, be sure that that stitches you open up line up correctly with the toe youve already knit. If you knitted a flat toe, the placement of the heel matters so the ends of the open row should line up with the sides of the toe. Again, using the free end of yarn that youre slowly unraveling from the open end of the tube, knit a heel on the stitches you just picked up. Knit any type of heel you want. Google afterthought heel or peasant heel for lots of instructions on how to insert a heel into a knitted tube. This is a common technique that lots of hand knitters use for socks. When youve finished the heel, youll now have something that looks a lot like a sock, except that there are open stitches still at the cuff end and no ribbing anywhere. At this point, you can run stitches down and latch them up and then bind off the top in a stretchy bind-off. This method works well if you want ribbing all the way down the leg and foot, but it can be difficult to manage a 1x1 rib at the cuff unless you pick up all those stitches onto needles or waste yarn. What I tend to do for the cuff is simply unravel the open end of the leg as far down as I want the cuff and hand-knit the ribbing until I run out of yarn. I like a 2x2 ribbed cuff on socks, so I will often knit that rib since you cant get that combination on most sock machines. Leave enough yarn to bind off (usually a yard or two), of course, and use your favorite stretchy bind-off. The Internet is loaded with stretchy bind-off methods for toe-up socks, so I wont go into them here. Just use whichever one you like the best. (If you knitted your heel and toe in a contrasting yarn, its a nice finishing touch to bind off with that contrasting yarn....) You can also do what the Shakers did, which was to simply turn down the open stitches to the inside of the leg and either whip-stitch or duplicate-stitch them into place, giving you a very tidy hem-top sock. These were common during the 1830s through the 1860s, the time period when the Shakers did most of their sock manufacturing. If you choose to do this, give those live stitches a shot of steam with that hot iron and damp cloth and itll be a ton easier to do. Et voila!! You get your socks done in record time because you didnt have to knit round and round and round on the leg and foot AND you can use whichever heel, toe, and cuff style you like. I often have several already knit and pressed tubes in the bottom of my knitting bag just in case I run out of another project and have time on my hands to work on a sock. You can also do the handknitting parts with a contrasting yarn. I think that method would be especially nice if your main tube was knitted with a self-striping or self-patterning yarn. Just pick a solid color that goes well with the patterned yarn and go for it! Youll be able to maximize the use of that often pricey yarn and have a sock that will stand out among the sea of self-patterning yarn socks. Have fun! -Eric. P.S. Another note for those of you that sell socks--if youre selling to Civil War reenactors, this is your sock!! While the Shakers were pacifists and did not participate directly in the Civil War, they were manufacturing and selling these socks during the entire war. As in all wars, demand for socks was very high, especially as the war dragged on. Many thousands of socks were hand-knitted at home for the war effort, but anyone with a circular knitting machine (which, admittedly, wouldnt have been many people) would have been cranking out socks as fast as they could, provided they could get the materials, which also become far more difficult as the war dragged on. If you search the old newspaper archives for that period, youll find employment ads where knitting mills were looking for young women and boys below draft-age to work in knitting mills making socks for the war effort. Any Civil War reenactor should be delighted to buy a pair of these socks from you. Theyre spot-on for historical accuracy for that period. There was also a cut-and-sewn pattern that was made during the war by cutting into and sewing closed the edges of knitted tubes. Youll find directions for those in some of the really old CSM manuals you can find online. Give them a try, too, but I gotta tell you--theyre both miserable to do and even worst to wear. There are sewn seams under your heel, behind your heel, and around your toes. Seriously uncomfortable....
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 06:42:47 +0000
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