Tartan hose book

[Barb T]

The real difficulty with knitting argyll hose is yarn; this has to be dyed to suit the tartan and marled yarn must be spun. Double thread can be attempted but again the colour match will be difficult, and very light weight yarn will have to be used to give the required stitch count, which will limit options.

This may be apocryphal, but I was told that companies such as Kilkeel and Henderson, who knit hose to match Dalgliesh dress tartans, actually use the same yarn that Dalgliesh uses so that the hose match their tartans exactly. Does anyone know if this is the case? That's what I was told at one point.

[DWFII]

I think I am correct in saying that the author also produces knitting kits for dancers hose, and I presume that this book is based on the same instructions that come in those kits. As an owner of one of those kits I am not sure I would recommend this book for someone trying to make hose for adult men; as a few posts have hinted shaping for an adult male's calf is not easy – this is less of an issue for children/women who the book is probably aimed at.

The real difficulty with knitting argyll hose is yarn; this has to be dyed to suit the tartan and marled yarn must be spun. Double thread can be attempted but again the colour match will be difficult, and very light weight yarn will have to be used to give the required stitch count, which will limit options.

It is certainly not unknown for commercial hose to have visible seams at the rear, and not just budget offerings. To maintain a perfect pattern the tension and needle size have to be altered, although this of course has limits and certain leg shapes probably can't be catered for without visible decreases.

As to the price of argyll hose, well these can be obtained fully bespoke for around 150 dollars. The amount of work that goes into these means that's a pretty fair price in my opinion. It really depends if you consider the value of you own time in comparison – the book, plus yarn, plus 10 or 20 or 100 hours to knit...

You may be right as to the author and the connection to the kits...which I know are designed for small legs--young dancers.

But that said, I know from recent email conversations with the author that the book, which I think is fairly recent, covers how to adjust for large men's calves. I asked that specific question. And in the most recent response the implication is that you can also adjust the patterns to make the backseam symmetrical.

Marled yarn is a problem but marled yarn is not used on kilts and it doesn't have to be used on hose either. This was one of the issues my wife had to deal with when she made my first pair of hose. I actually like the looks of two colours in place of marling better than the marled yarn itself.

I have another pair coming in MacQueen colors that is similarly done. This time however she figured that doubling the yarn in the calf area would not only make the calf larger without disturbing the pattern but also denser so that the yarn won't stretch open. I've tried one of the pair on and it seems to be larger and denser than my previous pair.

First pair... SuperWash Merino blend fingering yarn.

[piperdbh]

This may be apocryphal, but I was told that companies such as Kilkeel and Henderson, who knit hose to match Dalgliesh dress tartans, actually use the same yarn that Dalgliesh uses so that the hose match their tartans exactly. Does anyone know if this is the case? That's what I was told at one point.

If so, I'd like to have some sock weight yarn made from their light blue which they used to make the Carolina tartan.

[piperdbh]

May we see the back of this stocking, just to check out your Mrs.'s method of sewing the seam? Thanks!

[DWFII]

May we see the back of this stocking, just to check out your Mrs.'s method of sewing the seam? Thanks!

I've never taken a photo of the back...so I don't have one handy. Let me work on it.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

This may be apocryphal, but I was told that companies such as Kilkeel and Henderson, who knit hose to match Dalgliesh dress tartans, actually use the same yarn that Dalgliesh uses so that the hose match their tartans exactly. Does anyone know if this is the case? That's what I was told at one point.

Assuming those hose are machine knit it's certainly possible. But for hand knitting, weaving yarns would be very thin to use for socks. I suppose you could double or even triple them on the needle. But machine knit socks are generally made with a much finer thread, so they very well could be using the same yarns Dalgleish weaves their tartan from.

[Barb T]

Yes - they are machine custom knit.

[sockknitter]

The book's price will scare off nearly everyone.

There are photos in my album "socks I have known" of some tartan hose, Clan Turnbull, showing a good view of the back, and the shaping of the diamonds, as well as the leg being knit in the flat.

Would love to have posted the photo, but the planets are apparently not aligned for it.

At any rate, the top width of the leg started with three full diamonds, I think each was 30 stitches wide? By the time I got down to the ankle, there were only two full diamonds, and I had 60 stitches to work with around the ankle and instep. That's about how many I work with for regular socks.

But that was based on one person's measurements.

I s'pose you could do it in the round, but there is a bobbin for each color change. Knitting in the round w/ that many bobbins is a lot to contend with. Fun, but crazy! Instead, I prefer to work the leg flat, then join in the round for the foot. It's a personal choice, but it's also the traditional way.

I know you CAN do it in the round. But it's messy.

Yarn for these hose cost about $60? and I charged her $150 to knit them, including the cost of the yarn. I used a Shetland yarn, Jamieson & Smith, in their 2-ply Jumper weight, only because the brand had all the colors to match the tartan. I reinforced the heels and toes with a nylon/wool blend yarn, and used a smaller needle for those stitches.

The end-user LOVES her hose.

[Dixiecat]

I agree totally that the price of the book does not reflect the amount of information in it. While I understand that the book certainly imparts information on a hard to find subject, I'm of the opinion that the price is a money-grab. For some strange reason they won't sell their book without the accompanying yarn which is the case with the dancer's tartan hose and pattern kit that they sell. Hopefully the book will be better formatted than the pattern that came with the hose kit and carefully proofed for page or pattern errors.

[room2ndfloor]

"Fully fashioned" is a knitting term. It means that each piece is knitted to the shape that will be used in the garment. Fully fashioned garments may be seamless or seamed.

I cannot tell from the photo if the back of the hose has a true seam (sewn of two bound edges). The hose may have been knitted seamlessly, and what shows as a seam is where the knitted-in decreases were worked from the calf down to the ankle.

When a garment is not fully fashioned, the pieces are cut from a bolt of knitted fabric, then the edges of the cut pieces are serged to prevent ravelling, and the pieces are sewn together.

Fully-fashioning is the traditional way to knit by hand. It can be done with machine knitting, and that requires much more attention and skill than making a cut and sewn garment.

Fully-fashioning is by far the superior construction method. Since the edges of each piece are bound off in knitting, a garment made this way will last much longer than one that is cut and sewn.

As is usual, one gets what one pays for.