# Twenty Pairs A Year!



## homefire2007 (Sep 21, 2007)

I read somewhere, that in addition to everything else a colonial/pioneer woman did, she usually knitted twenty pairs of socks a year. Mindboggling. I thought about how busy my life is, how finding time to do things is not always easy. I don't have to chop wood, care for many children, weave, card wool, cook over a fire place, etc. Our fore mothers were a hardy lot. I've set myself a goal of knitting twenty pairs of socks in a year...wish me luck!


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## KyMama (Jun 15, 2011)

Oh my! My family would be in trouble since I can barely knit a scarf. LOL I guess different times, different skills though. Good luck with your goal. You are going to update us and post pics, right?


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## homefire2007 (Sep 21, 2007)

Therein lies the rub.......discipline...no TV It's going to be a long year  I have to agree, if you make the the time and do something often enough it becomes second nature. I've got some work to do.....


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

Keep in mind that she probably knit a lot faster than you do. And I'll bet some of those socks were for little feet.


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## tallpines (Apr 9, 2003)

And that pioneer woman was not attending all the modern day functions that her children/grandchildren were involved in..........although I've watch many grade school basketball games with a knitting project on my lap.:dance:


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

I don't know how many pairs per year, but women in 1800's New Brunswick were doing textile work to augment the family income. 


There is an interesting article done from the Acadiensis Journal;Thread in Her Hands - Cash in Her Pockets: Women and Domestic Textile Production in 19th-Century New Brunswick | Rygiel | Acadiensis

Here is an ad from 1880 soliciting handcrafted textiles from local women:


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

My guess is they used small gauge needles and the ones for the women and girls were probably longer than the mens.


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## Pearl B (Sep 27, 2008)

> *I knit a pair of simple socks on size 6 needles in two days* without much trouble and I am a SLOW knitter.
> 
> To me, it would seem it would be all about dedicating that time every evening to the task and then doing it and once the knitting is second nature and the pattern committed to memory- those socks would fly off the needles!


I can just about do that. I have the tutorial for silvers pretty well committed to memory. I imagine thats how they did it, nothing fancy,same pattern, and good thick(ish) sized wool to work with.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

The fast knitters can do a sock a DAY.

I would imagine that having begun your knitting career at a very young age would help you become proficient much more quickly.
Pretty soon your hands just knit while you stare off out the window or read a book.

The more you practice the faster you get! :teehee:

Pretty soon you will be ready for the 52 pair plunge!
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/52-pair-plunge-v--26-pair-plunge-ii


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

I wonder if those socks had turned heels or if they were knit like tube socks????

I'm lucky if I even finish a pair of socks. I think I have 3 pair in various stages right now! lololololl


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

And if they had 10 kids- it wasn't even 2 pairs a kid so they had to wash them all the time. I can see knitting 20 pairs of socks in a year. I'd like to try it and make all of our socks. None of those fancy patterns though - just plain old knitting - while I listen to reruns on the TV.


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## Pearl B (Sep 27, 2008)

> I've set myself a goal of knitting twenty pairs of socks in a year...wish me luck!


Good luck! Have you seen silver's tutorial on how to knit 2 socks at once on 1 circular needle? I just started my first pair using that method. I kinda like it! 

Silver's Sock Class


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## FMO3 (Nov 22, 2009)

20 pairs would not be that bad to do in a year. That is just 1 sock per week, with a week off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

I talked to my grandmother this morning and asked her what she had to knit to graduate high school....She was raised in Denmark. She said, that it was recommended that a young lady should be able to knit a pair of socks in 3 to 4 days...size 2.5mm needles. A scarf in 1 to 2 days. A sweater to take a week. But, she learned to knit in the first grade, that everyone was required to do it. But, they was all taught all Continental method, with holding the needles just lightly in your hands.


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## Ana Bluebird (Dec 8, 2002)

keep us informed, either way. Okay?


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## homefire2007 (Sep 21, 2007)

So far I'm chugging along with a no-frills wool sock on size four needles...I feel larger size needles and thicker yarns will be in my future I learned to knit on a circular needle a year ago. I loved it at first but soon went back to my set of five wooden ones. I think for the sake of speed I will go back to circulars. My oldest son assures me that he will use every pair. He says for comfort and warmth in work boots wool can't be beat. Especially in our long, snowy winters....did I tell you he wears a size 17 shoe?:shocked: I will keep you posted!


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## vicki in NW OH (May 10, 2002)

I knew an elderly German lady who said the girls in her family knit socks by the time they were 7. She had 5 sisters, so that was a lot of extra hands to do the knitting. They also knit undershirts for everyone in the family and shawls for the ladies, also mittens, gloves, etc. She grew up in southern Germany near the Austrian border in the mountains. They had to knit; it wasn't a hobby.


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## Lythrum (Dec 19, 2005)

I'm on my second pair this year, I'm behind!  I don't think it would be hard to do a pair a month, as most said, especially if you do a no-frills pattern. But then part of the fun with sock knitting is experimenting. :teehee:


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

If a woman had ten kids (still all at home), the kids would be knitting socks. If a girl was knitting socks by age seven, then she could knit her own socks, and socks for her brother or younger sibling.

I doubt they did tube socks because the heel will wear more quickly. A dutch heel/german heel/turned heel is not hard once you get the hand of it.


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## SvenskaFlicka (Nov 2, 2011)

I've knit five pairs so far this year on size 3s, four were very plain, one had cables... I think it's easily doable, but I can't imagine spinning the yarn.

I saw an antique unfinished sock at a museum once, and I am fairly sure it was a large man's sock on size 00s. It was frightening.


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## Pearl B (Sep 27, 2008)

> I saw an antique unfinished sock at a museum once, and I am fairly sure it was a large man's sock on size 00s. It was frightening.


 I just cant envision doing a sock, let alone a large one, on 00's, yet


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

I've spun and knit 2 pair of socks. It has taken me 31 years. After the first one. I said I would never again knit a pair of socks. Then that memory faded and I did another one. I might knit socks again in 10 years or so.

Fortunately my daughter loves doing socks. She always has a pair on the go so that in down time (from raising and homeschooling 7 kids) she can knit on them. I am content to make sweaters for her family while she would much rather make me socks. I once read in an English visitor's diary from the 1800's that pioneer women worked on socks in much the same way as my daughter. When they went out, they always carried a reticule containing socks to knit or repair.


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## tallpines (Apr 9, 2003)

Besides socks, they also used knitted "soakers" on all their babies.

This was before disposable diapers AND even before rubber or plastic pants.

All those babies wore knit "soakers" to absorb urine.

I still have a pair of them included with my baby doll clothes from 60 plus years ago.........that my mother originally used on me.

Sounds like good incentive to get those babies potty trained at a very young age!


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## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

What do you mean? I have "soakers" on my toddler-baby in the other room right now! LOL Those are still used, though these days probably by the more obscure, retro-cloth diaper fanatics (like myself  )

As far as the 1800/1900 women, my mother always said that the main reason my great-grandmother lived so long was she just had so much to do, that's why she outlived my great-grandfather by over a decade. That and she worked 10 times harder than her husband. He would get up with the sun and go out to the fields, then come in for lunch, go back out, then back in at dark. That was all he did. She on the other hand had to make soap, raise and school the children, tend the garden, care for the livestock (chickens and small livestock, theirs was a crop farm), wash clothes, cook all the meals, and so on. I'm sure she spun and knitted, but that heritage seems to have been primarily overlooked it seems.


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## tallpines (Apr 9, 2003)

Man may work from sun to sun,

But womanâs work is never done.

(old proverb)


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## alpacaspinner (Feb 5, 2012)

While going through my mother's sewing cupboard after her death I found a bag with a woman's stocking in it - a knit stocking, thigh length, for wearing with a garter. There was a note saying that my great grand mother (or maybe even gr-great g'mother) had knit it. Not as fine as silk, of course, but still, very fine wool, and (must have been) very fine needles. Only one though; the other had disappeared over the years. And yes, it had a turned heel.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

For the most part, socks made in that day and age were practical and needed to be basic and warm, which is pretty much all I make. I custom knit socks, knit socks as gifts and I knit well over 100 pairs a year.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Wind in Her Hair, it's not nearly as impressive as you'd think. I can't translate patterns to my inside out and backwards method of knitting so I can knit socks because I have a formula rather than a pattern so I can only knit socks. Where the rest of you knit sweaters, shawls and so many other pretty things, I custom knit socks, knit socks as gifts and for every sock I knit, I knit a duplicate pair for charity.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

wr, inside out and backwards. My goodness, what do you do?


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Maura, a few years ago, a friend was having problems with his feet so I decided that I'd start knitting socks and they couldn't be much more difficult that the hundreds of pairs of mittens I'd seen my grandmother make. The nice lady the refunded my knitting class fees seems to think that instead of knitting like my grandmother tried to teach me, I started back knitting from the perspective of sitting in front of her while she would knit. 

Wind in Her Hair mentioned a technique that's used for color work a while that's almost identical to how I knit all the time and while it works for me, it makes it almost impossible to follow patterns so I've simply come up with a mathematical formula for basic socks that works perfectly.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

It sounds like she knitted and you purled. Every knitter needs to learn to do both. Purl stitches are usually considered harder to do than knit stitches. I've also worked out my own perfect sock formula from the toe up that I really like. If you end up with what you want, there isn't really a_ wrong_ way to knit.


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## TNnative (May 23, 2004)

tallpines said:


> Man may work from sun to sun,
> 
> But womanâs work is never done.
> 
> (old proverb)


Amen!


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## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

My mother finally revealed a little story from the history of the women in our family (the female line is actually much more interesting than the male). My mother & I started talking about various forms of semi-obscure thread art, such as tatting and candlewicking. We discussed how tatting and crochet are similar, then we got into talk about knitting. She mentioned how she really wished she knew how to knit (she can crochet). Then she told me this story from her childhood:

When she was young, she was given a pair of knitting needles and a small ball of dark green yarn. Her idea of knitting at the time was to stick the ball onto one of the needles and twirl it around. One day she took these items with her to visit her grandmother (we called her nanny, I remember her even though she passed away when I was only a toddler). Nanny took the thread and needles and showed my mother how to cast on and knit. Then my mother said she whipped out a pillbox hat for her Barbie doll in about 30 minutes. She said it was a neat little hat, flat on top and rounded around the sides. She said that she never knew Nanny could knit, as she'd never done it before that day and never did it again as far as she knew.

This led to a discussion of the time era, when all girls were probably taught how to knit when they were young, and how Nanny probably simply never really had an interest to continue. Still, I thought it was an interesting tale from our ancestry.


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