This beautiful book brings together a celebration of the group of eighteenth-century learned women known as the Bluestockings, with a wide-ranging exploration of sock and stocking knitting.

The book’s first section features different perspectives on the history of socks and stockings, from expert contributors like Susan North (curator of eighteenth-century fashion at the V&A) and Sonja Bargielowska (of John Arbon Textiles). In the second section, essays about creative eighteenth-century women such as Mary Delany and Phillis Wheatley Peters are accompanied by seven contemporary toe-up patterns for socks and stockings.

Among the Bluestocking-inspired designs, you’ll find openwork and texture, stripes, chevrons, stranded colourwork, and a go-to sock and stocking recipe. Setting top tips about knitting toe-up socks alongside an exploration of historic dyestuffs, and bringing groundbreaking women writers together with accessible, wearable design, this lavishly illustrated volume offers an exciting in-the-round combination of material history, contemporary making, and early feminism.

Contributors: Sonja Bargielowska, Kate Davies, Kristina Decker, Elizabeth Eger, Susan North, Nicole Pohl, Isabella Whitworth.

Printed book, softback, 120 pages, 21x26cm.
Printed and bound in Glasgow.

Includes digital download code (for Ravelry website).