This will knock your socks off!

Estonian Knitting 2:  Socks and Stockings by Anu Pink (2018, Saara Publishing House, Türi, Estonia)

Again, because I was so focused on Estonian lace, I didn’t pay much attention to socks during my short visit to Tallinn last year.  I did buy one pair of socks, a lovely thick and slightly hairy pair that I wear around the house when it’s really cold.  I also bought a pair of mittens at the same time that kept me exceptionally warm all last winter. 

The socks illustrated in Estonian Knitting 1 in no way prepared me for the depth of the technical information in volume 2.  It is clear that the 8 years it took Anu Pink to compile this volume left her little time to eat and sleep!  Not only is it comprehensive in describing the methods and techniques of knitting socks, there are enough charts of lace, colorwork, and textured stitches to last even the most prolific of sock knitters a lifetime.  I could spend a year just with the heel and toe treatments. 

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Anu Pink states that she has probably examined every sock/stocking in every Estonian museum, and many in private collections as well.  To call this an exhaustive compendium is probably an understatement.  What I find quite wonderful about this book is although you can knit almost all of the socks in the book based on her information, the details of how to knit are minimal (as is the case for many patterns I came across in the Baltic regions) and assume you know quite a bit about making socks.  It could serve as a Master Class for sock knitters.

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I found some of the most interesting examples to be the Billowing Stockings.  The colorwork band is meant to sit just above the top of the shoe, giving the impression of pants tucked into the shoe when worn under a skirt, as in the photo above.  Based on her measurements, Pink has determined that the upper band would have fit snugly over the calf muscle, making them just as warm as all of the other shaped stockings in the book.  These stockings are pretty much all about staying warm.

Pink has distinguished between stockings (those that reach the knee or above) and socks (the shorter ones) because of the important relationship between these garments and the leg wraps and other leg coverings that historically preceded them.  Knitting stockings was both expensive and time-consuming to work at such a small gauge.  It isn’t at all surprising that in some areas of Estonia, socks and knitted leggings worn together, as well as socks plus various cut and sewn leg wraps, persisted (in some regions into the early 20^th century).  Instructions for using a rectangular piece of fabric cut into two triangles (no waste) are given to make leg warmers; hand-sewn and with French seams.  Knit leg warmers (sometimes knit that way and sometimes stockings with the worn-out feet cut off) also were used by farmers to protect their legs from being scraped by straw during the harvest. 

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Estonian Knitting 2 is absolutely jammed with historical facts, photographs, lush illustrations and technical information.  I think it is a “must” book for sock knitters, as well as anyone interested in knitting history.  It will give you endless hours of pleasure.