I usually knit socks, but recently someone at my sewing group talked about sewing socks from leftover pieces of jersey knit. I was intrigued and had a look around the internet, then drafted my own pattern. Here’s a pair of my finished sewn socks:

These are sewn from a Dutch print on cotton jersey that I used for one of my Mirri dresses. It was expensive, so I kept every shred – plus I really like it.

The pattern for these is a tube, pieced from two long rectangles. One has darts for the heel so needs to be cut a bit longer. Originally, I measured the length of my foot for the pattern, but ended up shortening it by about 2″ – because of the stretch of the jersey knit. I first tried these with rounded toes but the fit wasn’t good, so I shaped the toes for left and right socks. Here’s my pattern now:

It’s 4.25″ wide, with a .25″ seam allowance on each side. I have skinny feet. 🙂 These end just above the ankle and things are getting snug – if I wanted to make taller socks or knee socks, I’d need to widen the pattern and maybe even shape it to fit the calf.

Here are the other two pair I made of scraps:

They don’t look like much when they’re laid flat, but they are quick to make. I serged the darts, then all around the perimeter. It literally took minutes to make three pair. I just used a zigzag to hem the tops, but could have used the twin needle instead.

They’re more like sock liners to me, but then I tend to wear thick socks when I wear socks. They’d be easy to make to match another garment and would be fun to wear with shoes that will only allow a thin sock. I might also wear them as sock liners this winter. The tan and black ones are made of a sweater knit and they’ll be the warmest of them all.

Have you ever sewn socks?

I also finished kniting a new pair of socks for myself in self-striping yarn.

This is Online Supersock 6-fach Stripe Color, which has been well-aged in the stash. I think I bought it originally to make socks for the mister, but he missed out this time. 🙂