Things that will affect the m.ments are e.g. compozition of the yarn, gauge and which supplier you are working with (which machines they have and how they are set).

If you are making nylon stockings that is a totally diffrent process which requiers special measuring tools and I would personally (if I had my own business) leave the “pattern making” to the supplier. No doubt!
Good Luck!

However, this potential client may have a different concept, more along the lines of a non-knitted Polartec sock (see the Green Pepper pattern), and that is not made clear by the question. I would have to say ‘not enough info’ for a full reply.

I have done a ton of knit sweater development in my checkered career. I do not knit, but I did learn about yarn size, stitches, and gauge, in order to be able to specify my designs to commercial manufacturers. I’m just a designer/patternmaker that happened to be designing sweaters for a awhile. There are a lot of different kinds of knitting out there, and vanishingly few are available in the USA today.

In the greater NYC metropolitan area it is still possible to do what is known as ‘cut and sew sweater knits’. Strips of sweater cloth with a finished sweater start are knitted, then laid up and cut by specialized sweater cutters. It’s very different at the cutting end of things, then becomes more like a regular knit cut and sew in stitching. At the end, in finishing, cut and sew sweaters have to be pressed on a special frame, so the end of the process is very different too. For this you do need to make a pattern, and graded sets of patterns. There is a lot of wastage, as there can be a lot of scrap after cutting. Since yarn, dyeing, and knitting are paid *by the pound*, you are just throwing money away with the scrap.

Full-fashioned sweater knitting, the actual shape of the sweater is knit to size with finished edges and then linked together on a special machine. This way, you do not throw away yarn. It is a very different process, and not much done in this country anymore. For full-fashioned knitting, you would do a detailed technical specification rather than an actual pattern, and probably have to send it to China, India, Bangladesh, or Peru.

That is why I would say ‘not enough info’, having no real clue what this product actually entails. To say “I have a sock design I want to make” doesn’t tell me much. I am guessing that this person doesn’t need a ‘regular’ patternmaker. No harm in paying a visit to the one that they found, just for the excercise of getting their stuff together and making their presentation to the pattern service. Chances are however that this is not the right service for them and they will have to go father afield.

A dear friend of mine had a line that included socks and stockings. She once told me that while her contractors were able to produce items that would last many years most of their clients did not want that. She did. The name of her brand was woven boldly into the soles of her styles, and while the price was not low they were made to last.

Two days ago I wore a pair of socks that I inherited from her about ten years ago. A fashion photograph I happened on in the archives of a modeling agency dates them as being manufactured in the mid-1980s. The three pairs of her socks I own have lasted even as all others I’ve bought have been destroyed - and they weren’t new when I got them.

My friend’s niece has owned the company and the brand for some years now, but even now, every now and then when I take off my shoes to enter someone’s home or a Japanese inn, the soles of my feet advertise the legacy of a designer who took pride not only in the form but also in the quality of her products.

My experience in accessories is that the small design firms want local samples because they intend to use them to “sell” at a show or for some “selling or showing” purposes. Maybe having something tangible gives a feeling of accomplishment. However, since the mfg side of the equation is not solved they are in a rut if they can’t get it made once those orders come in. My advice which is ignored a lot is to solve your mfg first and your designs will come! What’s the use if the local sample maker can lovingly make something by hand but the factory can’t figure it out?

Good post as usual!

I also do hand knitting, mostly as a hobby. I hand knit socks too so I can comment on what would be needed in a commercial product. A regular pattern maker would not be able to draw up the specifications needed for commercial manufacturing. There is yarn type, yarn size, needle size, gauge, etc. Do you want that seam on the toe? A basic sock falls into a simple formula and the outcome is determined by the inputs.

Probably the best suggestion is to go directly to a sock manufacturer. Chances are they have technical designers and/or technicians that could whip out a sample in no time. They would most likely be able to refer suitable knitwear designers/pattern makers. I would suspect the knitwear industry is even smaller than sewn product manufacturing.