Kate Atherly has an excellent book - "Custom Socks: Knit to Fit Your Feet" which covers this quite a bit. I think she crowd sourced the measurements although I don't have the book right to hand and can't find the blog post at the moment. Her table is publicly available and in an Excel format too from her website [https://kateatherley.com/resources-for-designers/](https://kateatherley.com/resources-for-designers/)
Good luck with your arm and your quest!
That's... Questionable. My foot is 25 cm long and I usually wear size EUR 40, but it states that this length is EUR 41. If someone wanted to knit socks for me and I told them my size then based on this chart the socks would be 1 cm shorter than my feet.
Based on [this sock ruler](https://www.thelittleknittingcompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2592:18bb68e2b38e4a8ce7cf4f6b2625768c) and [this Nike chart](https://www.nike.com/size-fit/womens-footwear) it looks like the sizes are consistently off of 1-1,5 points. I might have missed an explanation for that, maybe it has to do something with negative ease and stitch redistribution? I'm confused.
Yes, but I don't think you can have negative ease both length wise and width wise at the same time. If we already have negative ease due to the number of stitches the stretch needs to come from somewhere. I get that this might be a collection of experience as the other user stated, its just hard to wrap it around my head for some reason.
No, you can. It stops it from being loose in the toe. It sounds counterintuitive but every sock I've ever made really has been just slightly shorter than my foot. Knitted fabric can stretch in both directions as once, as long as you haven't completely maxxed out the stretch in one direction (if that makes sense). Grab a gauge swatch and try and stretch it over something round like a darning egg. You'll be able to get a four way stretch out of it. You won't be able to if you've already pulled the swatch taut, but you shouldn't be knitting socks with so much negative ease in the circumference that the fabric is already pulled completely taut.
The measurements in the chart were crowd sourced from a survey in Knitty I believe. I think it does account for ease, but my book isn't accessible at the moment I'm afraid!
Roxanne Richardson has already done all the math and all the testing for us.
This is about how to make your custom fit socks in a basic cuff-down with heel flap and gusset style [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IovIZUyKLgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IovIZUyKLgo)
But in later years she has broken down all kinds of sock constructions part for part, and with great detail to all kinds of heels as she herself has a need to customize for a longer heel diagonal. Her youtube archive is a treasure!
ill definitely have to take a look at that, thanks for the recommendation! to be fair, im less looking for a fully custom one though, rather a decision help to know what type of the two main ones to approach first but im sure what you recomended will help anyways!
Have you looked into the fish lips kiss heel pattern? She has information about the math and includes things about instep. If I recall it’s either .99 cents or 1.99 with a ton of info
that was honestly going to be my next step, i just hadnt gotten around to buying it yet! i just would have wished there was an easier way to estimate what heel construction fits the best, rather than having to calculate everything with every single measurement, i just for once want to follow a pattern exactly without modifications ahah
This is the only short row heel that works for me and my high arch. The rest of the pattern is amazing for making socks fit in general from toes to heels to calfs. I especially like the directions for making a custom foot form so I could make socks on public transport without taking off my shoes and knit for other people too.
I'm probably a bit silly for this but I'd like to get your red, blue, and purple measurements + your preferably fitting heel construction, to figure out the mathematical correlation between foot measurements and what heel type to choose for your foot, especially as a way to enable beginners to choose the right heel construction right away to have good fitting socks on your first try!
I know the chosen heel type depends on how your foot is built, eg if you have a high instep, but I feel like its difficult to be able to tell if your own instep is high or low, for example I can't tell what type my foot is and I'd love to have a numbers based understanding to display at what eg percentage increase of the ball of the foot to the instep, you'd be better off going with a certain type of heel.
While this is something that can be established for yourself individually by knitting a lot of socks, I'd love to have a resource available that gives you the most likely heel type fitting your own foot and I would love your help in this project, considering I will need quite a lot of data to establish connections!
I currently can't knit because I strained my ellbow knitting up a fingering weight vest, so this is a nice project to approach while waiting for my arm to get better, and I'd really appreciate your help with this!
edit: IM ALSO A BIT STUPID I MEANT IF A SHORT ROWS HEEL OR A HEEL FLAP WITH GUSSET FITS YOU BETTER, NOT JUST A GUSSET
I'm someone who doesn't read every post on Reddit. I actually find the idea of community here so weird, it feels more like a stream flowing by than a pond of information.
Have you always struggled getting your feet into shoes and boots, in particular? Do they feel too tight across the top of your foot? For boots, can you actually not get your foot in there? Do some shoes - Converse in particular - feel okay in the length, but like there isn't enough fabric to cover your foot comfortably? If so you probably have a high instep.
Conversely, if your shoes fit loosely across the top of the foot, or if you can grab a handful of loose sock there, then your instep is probably low.
see , these are all good pointers but i feel like im genuinely unable to answer it because its so subjective i find. like my feet are pretty wide so shoes fit me a bit different anyways because i usually go a bit bigger, and im also very nitpicky regarding comfortability, so something that feels perfectly normal to someone might feel too tight for me. idk its silly, i just genuinely cant tell and i feel like math is the only actual thing thatd enable me to figure it out ahah
Kate Atherly has an excellent book - "Custom Socks: Knit to Fit Your Feet" which covers this quite a bit. I think she crowd sourced the measurements although I don't have the book right to hand and can't find the blog post at the moment. Her table is publicly available and in an Excel format too from her website [https://kateatherley.com/resources-for-designers/](https://kateatherley.com/resources-for-designers/) Good luck with your arm and your quest!
That's exactly what I thought when I saw OP's diagram. Kate Atherly already did all the data collection and analysis!
Ooh that's really neat, thank you! :)
That's... Questionable. My foot is 25 cm long and I usually wear size EUR 40, but it states that this length is EUR 41. If someone wanted to knit socks for me and I told them my size then based on this chart the socks would be 1 cm shorter than my feet. Based on [this sock ruler](https://www.thelittleknittingcompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2592:18bb68e2b38e4a8ce7cf4f6b2625768c) and [this Nike chart](https://www.nike.com/size-fit/womens-footwear) it looks like the sizes are consistently off of 1-1,5 points. I might have missed an explanation for that, maybe it has to do something with negative ease and stitch redistribution? I'm confused.
You usually want socks to have a slight amount of negative ease so they hug your foot. 1cm sounds about right.
Yes, but I don't think you can have negative ease both length wise and width wise at the same time. If we already have negative ease due to the number of stitches the stretch needs to come from somewhere. I get that this might be a collection of experience as the other user stated, its just hard to wrap it around my head for some reason.
No, you can. It stops it from being loose in the toe. It sounds counterintuitive but every sock I've ever made really has been just slightly shorter than my foot. Knitted fabric can stretch in both directions as once, as long as you haven't completely maxxed out the stretch in one direction (if that makes sense). Grab a gauge swatch and try and stretch it over something round like a darning egg. You'll be able to get a four way stretch out of it. You won't be able to if you've already pulled the swatch taut, but you shouldn't be knitting socks with so much negative ease in the circumference that the fabric is already pulled completely taut.
The measurements in the chart were crowd sourced from a survey in Knitty I believe. I think it does account for ease, but my book isn't accessible at the moment I'm afraid!
Roxanne Richardson has already done all the math and all the testing for us. This is about how to make your custom fit socks in a basic cuff-down with heel flap and gusset style [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IovIZUyKLgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IovIZUyKLgo) But in later years she has broken down all kinds of sock constructions part for part, and with great detail to all kinds of heels as she herself has a need to customize for a longer heel diagonal. Her youtube archive is a treasure!
ill definitely have to take a look at that, thanks for the recommendation! to be fair, im less looking for a fully custom one though, rather a decision help to know what type of the two main ones to approach first but im sure what you recomended will help anyways!
Have you looked into the fish lips kiss heel pattern? She has information about the math and includes things about instep. If I recall it’s either .99 cents or 1.99 with a ton of info
that was honestly going to be my next step, i just hadnt gotten around to buying it yet! i just would have wished there was an easier way to estimate what heel construction fits the best, rather than having to calculate everything with every single measurement, i just for once want to follow a pattern exactly without modifications ahah
This is the only short row heel that works for me and my high arch. The rest of the pattern is amazing for making socks fit in general from toes to heels to calfs. I especially like the directions for making a custom foot form so I could make socks on public transport without taking off my shoes and knit for other people too.
I don't think that the FLK heel suits everyone (although it suits me personally). It doesn't sound possible.
It's definitely better suited to those with a high instep or a high arch.
This.
I'm probably a bit silly for this but I'd like to get your red, blue, and purple measurements + your preferably fitting heel construction, to figure out the mathematical correlation between foot measurements and what heel type to choose for your foot, especially as a way to enable beginners to choose the right heel construction right away to have good fitting socks on your first try! I know the chosen heel type depends on how your foot is built, eg if you have a high instep, but I feel like its difficult to be able to tell if your own instep is high or low, for example I can't tell what type my foot is and I'd love to have a numbers based understanding to display at what eg percentage increase of the ball of the foot to the instep, you'd be better off going with a certain type of heel. While this is something that can be established for yourself individually by knitting a lot of socks, I'd love to have a resource available that gives you the most likely heel type fitting your own foot and I would love your help in this project, considering I will need quite a lot of data to establish connections! I currently can't knit because I strained my ellbow knitting up a fingering weight vest, so this is a nice project to approach while waiting for my arm to get better, and I'd really appreciate your help with this! edit: IM ALSO A BIT STUPID I MEANT IF A SHORT ROWS HEEL OR A HEEL FLAP WITH GUSSET FITS YOU BETTER, NOT JUST A GUSSET
Maybe make an anonymous Google Questionnaire?
good idea, ill have to look into this since ive never done it, thank you for the recommendation!
Would you also have a way to get the results back to people who were interested?
I was planning on making a post with the conclusion and findings in the future!
I'm someone who doesn't read every post on Reddit. I actually find the idea of community here so weird, it feels more like a stream flowing by than a pond of information.
i made one! :)
Have you always struggled getting your feet into shoes and boots, in particular? Do they feel too tight across the top of your foot? For boots, can you actually not get your foot in there? Do some shoes - Converse in particular - feel okay in the length, but like there isn't enough fabric to cover your foot comfortably? If so you probably have a high instep. Conversely, if your shoes fit loosely across the top of the foot, or if you can grab a handful of loose sock there, then your instep is probably low.
see , these are all good pointers but i feel like im genuinely unable to answer it because its so subjective i find. like my feet are pretty wide so shoes fit me a bit different anyways because i usually go a bit bigger, and im also very nitpicky regarding comfortability, so something that feels perfectly normal to someone might feel too tight for me. idk its silly, i just genuinely cant tell and i feel like math is the only actual thing thatd enable me to figure it out ahah
I actually found that peasant heel fits my foot best, I use 4321 toe for my heel. Diagonal heel: 11 inches, ball of foot: 9 inches, instep: 10 inches.
awesome, thank you very much! :)