Toe Techniques: Knitting Flat and Round Toe Socks

In a previous post, I introduced Weldon’s Practical Needlework as a resource for all sorts of crafts, especially knitting. The wealth of information is amazing and can help you improve how your knits fit, especially socks.

Feet are unusual appendages with their complexity of bones, muscles, and tendons, and every pair of feet is different. To handle these complicated and hardworking body parts, Victorian knitters collected ways to shape heels and toes in their socks that could be adapted for fit, use, and materials. Surely, a lady’s silk stocking would have different demands than a rough, workaday woolen sock? While Victorians knit socks from the cuff down, each of these toes can be adapted to the toe up direction by changing decreases to increases.

Finishing your Foot

Unless you have decided to knit an open-toed sock like a yoga sock or a pedicure sock, at some point you will need to close up the end of your project with a shaped toe. Weldon’s Practical Stocking Knitter contains seven variations! These can be divided into two groups, flat or rounded.

Flat and Familiar

The two methods detailed in the “flat” section of Weldon’s keep the decreases to the sides of the foot, giving the sock a flat appearance, and is what most knitters are currently familiar with. This method works well when working socks on circular needles or using the magic loop method because the needles help you keep track of where the decreases should fall.

Socks with flat toe shaping, Left: Setu socks by Nancy Bush are knit cuff down. Right: Pilaster socks by Debbie O’Neill are worked from the toe up.

Rounded Top

The second section in Weldon’s contains methods that create a more rounded appearance; the decreases can be found around the complete circumference of the sock. The examples include Round, Pointed, French, Star Toe of 4 Points, and Star Toe of 5 Points. I can see these types of toes being useful for different feet. The French toe would be appropriate for baby socks because of babies’ short toes, whereas my daughter’s long, skinny toes would fit better in the Round style.

Carrie Brezine’s (left, cuff down) Magdalena de Cao Viejo Stockings and Katrina’s (right, toe up) Ogee Lace Stockings both incorporate round toe shaping using different methods.

Not just for Socks

What if the loved ones you knit for just aren’t into socks? Toe shaping can also be used for the tops of hats. The Pointed toe has a wonderful swirl of decreases that could grace your next beanie or tam. In fact, without their accompanying foot, the diagrams do look like little hats.

Please note that these methods are knitted from the cuff down and will take some adjustments to fit modern-day sock yarns. Victorians knitted stockings at an incredibly fine gauge, averaging 10 to 11 stitches to the inch! While my socks are not that fine, the skills I have learned from Weldon’s Practical Stocking Knitter can be applied to my other projects. Maybe my next hat will be inspired by that pointed toe.

Farm & Fiber Knits subscribers can find Weldon’s Practical Stocking Knitter in the Farm & Fiber Knits library, plus search all of our available sock patterns.