Can We Talk – About Sock Rulers?

Friday, July 17, 2026

This has been a beautiful day! I managed (with some little breaks) to sit on the front porch knitting for most of the day. The perfect spot for me as I continue to rest and recuperate, and I am starting to feel better.

I’ve been working on my shortie socks, the second pair that are “my design” which means I am using several patterns all mashed up together in one pair. I really like a heel flap and gusset so I’ve borrowed that from Yankee Knitter and I like a plain vanilla sock which I’ve adapted from the Crazy Sock Lady. AND I love the Coop Knits Socks Yeah! sock yarn. I think it may be my current favorite sock yarn. Anyway, as I was knitting away on the foot of the sock, I pulled out my Polka Dot Sheep sock ruler. It’s like a slap bracelet so it rolls up small. The outside is plastic and, as such, is the biggest issue I have with the ruler in general. It’s sticky. It sticks to the yarn and I have to finagle it into the heel and foot of the sock and then maneuver the sock in order to get an accurate measurement. Not my favorite tool but it travels well due to its compact size.

It does have a couple of measurements that are nice to have: shoe sizes for children, women and men and on the reverse side are inches. For my size, a woman’s 9.5 I can knit to the mark a bit past the size 9 and then start the toe.

The other Sock Ruler I have is what I would call the “original” which is a flat plastic, one-sided ruler that fits into the sock smoothly (much more smoothly than its counterpart). It’s marked in centimeters and inches. Simple and efficient. The only drawback is its size. It’s pretty big and rigid so it needs to be flat at the bottom of your knitting bag. (I have the adult ruler and the child/infant set and they’re all the same, just different sizes.) This is my prefered sock ruler because I like the way it fits into the socks and makes it easier to measure the foot lenght.

There are other sock rulers out there and if you ask me they’re all about the same. Some are made of a “wood” product, too. My concern is that this material won’t slide smoothly into the sock as the Polka Dot Sheep one doesn’t. I will keep choosing my OG Sock Ruler which you can order here or purchase at your LYS.

And, I’m happy to report that I have a FO! My second shortie socks are finished! Ta! Da!

Now to get moving on finishing Sylvie’s purple sparkly swing skirt!

Gone finishing.

Finished!

Woo! Hoo! Yay me!!! My very first Covid-19 Pandemic FO! Socks for my neighbor’s big birthday.

I find it difficult to buy gifts for friends. I want to get them something they will love. I put a lot of pressure on myself to find the perfect, most wonderful gift. So, often I am stuck with no good ideas. This time, I decided to give my neighbor a ball of yarn and a promise that I would make her socks.

She traced her foot and brought the yarn back to me a few days ago. Today I delivered the finished pair to her and she loves them. Yay!!!

The yarn is EYC Fair Isle (aran weight) and I used the most wonderful sock pattern, Yankee Knitter’s Classic Socks for the Family (#29). I love this pattern because it provides the best-fitting socks for baby through adult man and you can tailor the socks to the yarn you’re using. In this case, the yarn is self-patterning so I wanted a very simple sock so the pattern shows. (If I’d used cables or patterns they’d have been lost in the pattern of the yarn.)

Every pair of socks that I make, I use my “most favoritest” sock knitting tool, the Sock Ruler. I was given my adult sock ruler by my sister-in-love. I wasn’t sure I’d use it because I have knitted so many socks. I didn’t think I needed it. Well, was I wrong! I use it to measure the length of the leg and the the BEST part is when you’re knitting the foot – and the sock ruler fits down into the heel so you can measure how far you’ve knitted the foot without the fiddly heel/gusset interference! You know, the part where you try to lay the sock flat with three needles and measure from the outside at the end of the heel to the needles? Well, the sock ruler takes all that fiddly stuff out of the equation! You can find the Sock Ruler at Yardgoods Center in Waterville, Maine or online. I wish I had come up with the idea but I don’t make any money if you buy them.

Gone knitting!

To learn more about my knitting projects, find me on Facebook (QueenBeeKnits by LindaWarner), Instagram (@queenbeeknits) and Ravelry (lindar).