Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

[rmeyer]

When I informed my wife that I was going to partake in this months bully buy she asked me why I wanted to spend the money when she can knit (news to me) SO I was wondering if anyone had a period pattern for a pair of wool soldiers socks and also a good source for wool, I am wanting to do gray socks.

Thanks
Ryan Meyer

[BrandonEnglish]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

PM Sent sir.

[NYCivilWar]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

Hey Ryan,

My fiancee has just about finished knitting me a pair of gray wool socks. She got a kit at Needle and Thread in Gettysburg. Don't know the price, but they are based on an orignial pair. Kit came with instructions, the wool and even the period advertisement that the Women's Aid Society had made up when they were making the socks for the troops.

Hope this helps,
Kyle M. Stetz

[rmeyer]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

Thanks for the info guys,

Ryan

[col90]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

Sir:

Karin Timour has done more research on period sock knitting than anyone I know. She is an approved vendor here, and a member of our organization. If you go to our website here http://www.agsas.org/howto/patterns/knitting_sock.shtml you will find a brief overview of the 1865 Sanitary Sock pattern, along with the free pattern. We have decided to expand our sock selection by not one but four versions of the “Directions for Knitting Socks” from the United States Sanitary Commission Bulletin (Volume I, Number 31, February 1, 1865, page 963). We are including a) the original 19th century pattern; b) a modern “translation” of this pattern into modern knitting instructions for experienced knitters, using 3/8 JaggerSpun yarn; c) an intermediate version of the same pattern (more detailed explanations of terms and techniques); and c) a version for beginning knitters using worsted weight yarn. Please note we have no documentation that period socks were ever knit with modern worsted weight yarn. The worsted weight version is given there ONLY for knitters who want to learn, and is not intended to be used for an authentic impression.


I think this will help you in your quest.

Colleen

[KarinTimour]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

I edited this to correct the websites and accidentally ended up posting it twice.

Sorry for the confusion.

Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[KarinTimour]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

Dear Ryan:

Congratulations on having the good luck to have married a knitter! Send her over to the AGSAS website and I'm sure she'll find the information she needs, as well as links and sources for the proper weight yarn.

I've been thinking a lot about the role of small businesses in our economy lately and here are some of my thoughts. The recent economic crashes and the discussions of how our country got into this state has been much on my mind. There's an Alan Jackson song called "The Little Man" which talks about this. In our time period, many people understood that the ways they spent their money supported their politics. Patrotic Confederates wore and celebrated homespun, made buttons out of persimmon seeds, and hoops out of willow branches or grapevines, avoided blockade run goods and made do as much as possible. Some abolitionist families wouldn't wear cotton or buy sugar, since these were the products of slave labor.

One of the surprises of my particular business was the sources of supply for wool. Those of you who aren't sheep farmers may not know this, but it's a labor intensive business. Think about it -- every ounce of wool started somewhere as a sheep being shorn by hand. Even in this day and age. Most of these family operations make their rent money from selling lambs for meat. But their breeding stock has to be shorn every year, so they have to do something with the fleece. It's often turned over to the wife of the couplle as a sort of modern day "butter and egg" business. Smaller farms may not produce enough wool to make it economically feasible to ship it to the spinning mill, so they just let it rot.

Carodan Farm, one of the suppliers listed on our website, (www.carodanfarm.com) is located in the Shenandoah Valley. They were sheep farmers, on a very small scale, but realized that their neighbors couldn't afford to ship their small number of fleeces individually to the spinning mill. So they organized a neighborhood pick up at shearing time, collected the wool, and then it was shipped to the mill in one shipment. Just one of those unsung, neighbor helping neighbors acts that don't make the nightly news. And for some families, that little bit of extra revenue makes it possible for them to keep their farm as a working farm, rather than being sold to developers. It's not directly preserving battlefield land, but it is preserving land that our ancestors marched over, and keeps the appearance much as they saw it.

Bartlett Yarns (www.bartlettyarns.com) is a family owned and run spinning mill founded in 1821. They are one of the last to use "spinning mules," 19th century machines that spin in a partcularly 19th century way. They were in operation and supplied contractors who supplied the US Army for both the Mexican and the Civil War. They buy wool from family farms keeping farming famileies on the land.

Jagger Brothers Yarn (www.jaggeryarn.com) was founded in the 1880s, but is still family owned and operated. They custom spin yarn and then supply small yarn shops. So they are supporting three levels of small businesses: a) sheep farmers, b) yarn store owners, and c) small manufacturers, like me. I searched for several years to find someone who was making yarn in the right weight for the 1865 Sanitary Commission socks. It's an old-fashioned way of making yarn, and they are the only firm I've been able to find who are still spinning it to this specification. If you go to their website they have a listing of yarn stores in nationwide and in several countries, so you can find a yarn store close to you who stocks their stuff, or will ship it to you.

Lots of wool mills have been forced out of business by the Chinese and East Asian textile factories. Once a mill goes out of business here, often a jobber will actually sell and ship the very machines to little factories in Malaysia or China.

Do your bit to help keep our family sheep farmers on the land, and buy American.

Hopping down off my soap box,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[markj]

Re: Period pattern for knitting soldiers socks

The following pattern was published in a number of Southern newspapers including, I believe, the Macon GA "Telegraph" in 1864. However, I've since established this pattern was actually lifted from the Northern press: the 10 October 1861 Madison IN "Daily Courier" published identical instructions, which, from all appearances, actually originated in an Eastern (possibly New York or Pennsylvania) paper some weeks or months previous.


MOBILE REGISTER AND ADVERTISER, January 1, 1864, p. 1, c. 7
Woolen Socks for the Army.—The following directions, which have been furnished by a lady of much experience, may prove useful to those who will engage in knitting woolen socks for the army. The yarn should be bluish grey, No. 22, and the needles No. 14 to 15:
Set twenty-seven stitches on each needle; knit the plain and two seam rows alternately until the ribbing is three inches long; then knit plain seven inches for the leg, remembering to seam one stitch at the end of one needle. To form the heel, put twenty stitches on two of the needles, and forty-on on the other—the seam stitch being in the middle. Knit the first row plain, the next row seam, and so alternately until the heel is three inches long, then narrow off the plain row each side of the seam stitch for five plain rows, which will leave thirty-one stitches. To close the heel, knit the last seam row to the middle of the needle, knit the seam stitch plain, then fold the two needles together, and with another needle take off the seam stitch. Then knit a stitch from both needles at once and bind the seam stitch over it. Continue knitting in this manner until but one is left and the heel closed. Take up as many stitches as there are rows around the heel; knit one row plain; then widen every fifth stitch on the heel needles. Narrow once on every round at each side of the foot until there are twenty-seven stitches on each needle; knit plain six inches; narrow at the beginning and end of each needle on every third round till you have seventeen stitches on each; then narrow every second till you have seven; then every round until the foot is closed. One pound of yarn, costing from seventy-five cents to one dollar, will furnish four pairs of socks.

***********************

Regards,

Mark Jaeger