Product Description

The editors at Vogue® Knitting, the most trusted name in the craft, have done it again, creating the most comprehensive guide available to sock knitters! No other book has both information for designing your own socks and such fabulous, never-before-published designer patterns. It includes background on the social and historical development of sock knitting (complete with historical photos), techniques (top-down, bottom-up, many different heel and toe styles), stitch patterns, and socks from a wide variety of ethnic traditions. Since sock knitting requires only the most basic skills, like casting on, knitting in the round, decreasing, working short rows, picking up stitches, binding off and seamless joining, its a great place for beginners to start.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164158 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 184 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
As an obsessive sock knitter, I snapped up a copy of this book as soon as it was available. However, I have since passed it on as I felt it could have been far better than it was.

The book is divided into a brief historical knitting section, a basic guide to sock construction and ways of knitting socks, pattern swatches taken from the Vogue Stitchionary series for creating your own designs and then a section with designer sock patterns, some reprinted from Vogue Knitting magazine.

Ultimately, I think this book suffers due to not knowing what it is really aiming to be. It fails as a basic sock recipe book when compared to Sensational Knitted Socks and its sequel More Sensational Knitted Socks because these books have a far greater selection of stitch patterns and sock knitting methods. There aren't enough patterns to make it valuable as a sock pattern book like, say, Knitting Vintage Socks. In the end, it seems to be a case of taking a "little bit of this book and a little bit of that book" and ending up with a book that compares unfavourably to their own "Vogue Knitting": The Ultimate Knitting Book, which is a fantastic resource for knitting design and techniques. The Ultimate Sock Book is sadly nowhere near being ultimate, by any stretch of the imagination.

Sock it to them
An excellent Guide to knitting socks both from a variety patterns and with a clear guide to designing your own. The best sock book I have read so far.

Great for starting off, but not perfect
I am a total novice, and it explains almost everything. Having never seen a sock knitted before I was knitting the wrong way out! Once I got over that but though I am getting on fine now, the pictures are great, not just for socks, but for some of the other methods used more generally such as casting on and short row shaping. Nice if you just want some small projects for a holiday and dont want to do loads of intricate patterns, although there are these too. The guides for the different wools and size feet are also great, as are the designing tips. Sadly I find that actually knitting socks may not replace knitting jumpers for me, but I can happily see me knitting the occasional pair and no need to buy another book.