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If you’ve thought about knitting a pair of socks but are intimidated by the words heel turn and shaping, you can give socks a try by making a pair of tube socks.

The diagram of a knit sock includes the toe, sole/foot, gusset, heel turning, heel flap (depending on the heel style used for your pattern), leg and cuff.

The origins of tube socks is said to have started in the 1960s as a pair of casual socks to wear playing sports, namely basketball and soccer. The original tube sock was said to help protect the athletes’ legs from abrasions and/or grass burns. The nature of the tube sock, along with the creation of stretchy yarns, allowed manufacturers to mass produce the socks in a one-size-fits-all process. Less processing made the tube socks financially affordable for most people.

A tube sock is the kind of sock that has minimal (if any) heel shaping. Some crafters may avoid making socks because they are intimidated with the thought of using magic loop method or double point knitting needles (my personal preferred method of knitting socks). However, there are some tube knit sock patterns that are made using straight knitting needles, knitting the rows back and forth. Socks made on straight knitting needles are made from the cuff to the toe. Then, the stitches of the toe are stitched closed (either using kitchener stitch method or threading all toe stitches with the tail of the yarn and pulling the stitches closed). Then, the yarn tail is also used to stitch the sides together using a mattress stitch technique.

Some tube socks are made with fingering or sock weight yarn, others are made using a larger knitting needle and thicker yarn. The thicker socks are more often used as a pair of slippers or bed slippers (worn while sleeping) as opposed to socks that are worn inside a pair of shoes or boots. You can find many different patterns to make tube socks by doing an internet search. Today’s self-striping yarns also make it easy to create a colorful pattern on the socks without using more intricate intarsia or stranded knit techniques.

My late mother-in-law loved to knit for the grandchildren. One of the pairs were tube sock-style booties she made for my kids. The booties were made in a knit rectangle, and included an eyelet row at the top and bottom of the knit rectangle. The eyelet rows were laced with a shoelace and tied, bringing the top and bottom of the booties together (instead of seaming the bootie together). They were easy to put on and off and kept my kids feet nice and warm during the cold winter months.

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