Sock Ruler

I first saw the Sock Ruler about 18 months ago on the Grocery Girls podcast and thought if I really get into sock knitting it is a tool I’m going to get. I looked at buying it from overseas, the ruler itself wasn’t too expensive but the postage to Australia was a killer with the costs working out to be way more than the ruler. Luckily I found a local shop Kathys Fibres in Australia that sold it so I was able to get it from there – I may of also picked up a skein of yarn when I was there….

So what is a Sock Ruler? It is a rigid piece of plastic that is a measuring guide or as the name suggests a ruler that you can use when knitting socks to see how long each section is. Pretty simple when you think about it but really handy and useful as measuring socks can be a little tricky, it has a rounded tip so you can place it inside the sock to get an accurate measurement. It has both inches and centermetres marked on it so it caters for imperial and metric measurements – I always use inches when I measure things

At the moment I knit my socks cuff down. This is perfect for measuring how long the cuff and leg section is. You place the rounded tip inside the cuff section then flatten your knitting down the ruler to see how long it is. If you were to knit toe up socks you would place the rounded tip inside the toes and measure the foot section from there. For cuff down this is brilliant as I can measure how long the leg section is before starting my heel section.

Again on cuff down socks once you finish the gusset section you can measure to see how long the sock is before beginning the toe decreases. You fold your sock over and place the rounded tip snug into the heel turn to measure the foot length, on toe up socks you would place the tip in the same area but this time measure how long to make the leg section before beginning the cuff. I knit magic loop and my knitting tends to roll a bit when I try to measure it but by placing it on the ruler I can get it to sit flat and accurately see the length.

I have found that I’m not only using this on socks, it is a handy ruler to measure small items like the width of cowls. I’m so glad that I purchased this tool for my knitting. If you like sock knitting I urge you to go check this out, there are other sock rulers on the market but I really like the rounded tip that this one has.

Cassiy