Children's Socks - update and results

I eventually got some measurements for the children's socks two weekends ago (the buyer had been to the Bahamas and forgotten all about it). They were bigger than she had led me to believe, so I have been able to do them on a 60/30 set-up on an AKMC.

I knitted one pair by the Monday, when I was seeing her, and she pulled a face and said she didn't think they looked the right size. She would go and measure their feet "right now", as she was picking them up from school. She forgot Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday....... I eventually had a phone call on the following Saturday from son in law and have the right measurements. It is interesting that the measurements she gave me were shoe sizes and a measurement around the foot. The actual foot measurements are bigger than the children's shoe sizes indicated (taken from more than one chart), and the leg lengths a lot longer than she had asked for. Give me real measurements every time.

Despite the hassle getting the sizes, it was a worthwhile exercise as when faced with the box with my stock in, she bought four pairs of bedsocks, not just one. The rejected pair of children's socks is now in my stock box and will sell one day. I now know I can do a range of 5 to 8 year old's size socks on my 60 slot machine and get the right sort of sizes, AND can do the tiny socks on 48 needles (or more or less) on my flat bed. Maybe one day I'll find a 48/24 set-up for one of my machines. They were made by several of the manufacturers, but seem as rare as rockinghorse droppings.

The photo shows (from left to right) the smallest socks, done as toe-up circular knitting on my flat bed machine with hand knitted ribs, in Fortissima, the next two sizes on a 60/30 set up on an AKMC, the pink is my own hand dyed yarn and the multi-colour striped is Regia. Finally the wider pair on the right is one of my pairs (for scale), knitted on a 72/36 Griswold using one of my hand painted sock blanks. The striped pair look long in the foot, but when stretched sideways to the right width, are of course shorter. Always the problem with the first pair of socks for anyone, what cylinder to use and how much stretch/take up to allow for in each direction.