Wonder Socks

Wonder Series leaflet No. 1

There are three knitting pattern leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection for 'Wonder-Socks', with the slogan 'No Darning' on the front.  They don't need darning because either the toe and heel, or else the entire sole of the sock from toe to heel, are made separately from the rest of the sock and are easily replaceable. 

The leaflet shown above for 'Wonder-Socks' gives a patent number for the design.  I do like a hand knitting or crochet patent, and have collected quite a few.  They mostly relate to tools and gadgets - knitting needles, crochet hooks, needle gauges, row counters, and so on.  Patents for knitting patterns are very unusual.  The 'Wonder-Sock' patent was granted in 1937.  The proposed improved sock 'comprises at least two separate portions detachably secured together wherein the separate portions are provided along their edges with holes, perforations or loops whereby the separate portions may be readily secured together without the edges of the different portions overlapping.'  The patent application explains how to knit little holes along the edges of each piece of the sock (by a series of yarn overs and knit-two-togethers), so that the pieces can be joined by lacing a thread though the holes. 

Diagram from Patent 475912

According to the pattern leaflet: 'The Wonder-Sock is ever new and needs NO DARNING. A very valuable asset at the present time, with its perfectly fitting heels and toes, which only require a few stitches passed through the perforated selvages. No ugly darns: only a charming clock design where the new part is put in.' The 'present time' was 1940 - the leaflet goes on to say that the suppliers of the leaflet would knit men's socks for you, and that 'early bookings are wise to secure 1941's supply'.  (It doesn't say how many spare parts you got for each pair of socks, which I would have thought would be crucial information.) 

These days, when most machine knitted socks are hard wearing and relatively cheap, and knitting wool for socks usually has about 25% nylon for durability, darning socks is not the chore that it was in the 1940s.  Back then, before the days of nylon and other synthetic yarns, wool socks could wear into holes quite quickly, and many people could not afford to replace socks as soon as they developed a hole - especially in the 1940s when clothes were rationed, so that even if you had the money, you couldn't afford the coupons.  Darning and mending was a constant task for many women. 

Some years ago, someone knitted a sample Wonder-Sock from the pattern shown above, to see how well it works. 

Some people who have seen the sample thought that the joins between the pieces could be uncomfortable in wear (though no-one has actually tried wearing the sock to see, as far as I know).  The patent says  'the two portions [e.g. the heel and main part of the sock] may be readily secured together without the adjoining edges of the different portions overlapping' - but implies that you should take care that they don't overlap.  I think that it would be important not to make the stitching too tight - this has happened in one place on the sample sock and there is a slight ridge at that point, but elsewhere, with looser stitching, the seam feels perfectly flat. 

There are two versions of the Wonder-Sock, one with a separate heel and toe, as in the sample sock, and the other with the entire toe, heel and sole part replaceable, as illustrated in the patent.  The Wonder-Sock leaflet shown above illustrates both versions, but only gives instructions for the first version, though the leaflet does casually suggest that an experienced knitter could easily knit the other version without additional instructions.  But perhaps customers complained that they needed a proper pattern, because a leaflet for a 'Victory' sock, with the instructions for a replaceable sole, was produced. 

Wonder Series leaflet No. 3

Replacing parts of socks rather than darning them was not a new idea, as the Wonder-Sock patent acknowledges. Socks were invariably knitted top-down, so toes could be replaced by unravelling them, picking up the stitches and reknitting them with new wool.  Replacing the heels was less straightforward, but as early as 1886, Weldon's Practical Needlework, in its first Stocking Knitter issue had some (very brief) instructions for re-heeling socks.  As far as I can understand the instructions, you cut out or unpick the worn part of the heel, pick up stitches along the upper edge of the resulting gap, reknit the heel as far as you need to fill the gap, cast off, and sew the new heel in.  It seems that you then end up with a seam along three sides of the new heel, including one along the cast-off edge which would be under your foot.  The Wonder-Sock patent comments: 'this repairing operation has either been difficult and tedious to accomplish or has necessitated the formation of a ridge at the join which has given discomfort to the wearer' (or quite possibly both at once, I should think).   

As well as the Wonder-Sock patterns, there is a glove pattern in the same series. 

Wonder Series leaflet No. 4: Sun Ray Gloves

The fronts and backs of the gloves are knitted separately and then sewn together, so it would be possible to replace either half if they were worn out. They are knitted sideways: you knit the fingers one at a time (or rather half a finger at a time), along with the corresponding part of the palm, and then cast off the finger stitches and cast on stitches again for the next finger.  An ingenious idea.  

I have found out some details about the person who invented the Wonder-Sock. The 1937 patent was granted to Ida Janet Dufour-Cole, with an address in Cambridge. Ida Cole was born in 1880 in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, the youngest of five children of a jeweller and his wife.  Her father died when she was very young, but in 1891, the five children and their mother were all living together in Cambridge, and the three sons were working, and presumably supporting the family. In the 1901 census, Ida was a lodger in Eastbourne and was employed as a Costumier - I assume in Eastbourne, though it's impossible to tell from the census. 

In 1910, Ida married Samuel L Dufour in the Paddington district of London. Samuel Dufour is something of a mystery man - I can find no sign of him in any of the records in FindMyPast, except for his marriage to Ida Cole. In the 1911 census, Ida J. Cole was the head of a household in Edgware Road (London). She is listed as married, but there is no sign of her husband. She was a dressmaker, working from home, and there were two other women in the household, both her employees: one was an assistant dressmaker and the other the housekeeper. So apart from the absence of the husband, Ida Cole seems settled and successful by this time, aged 31.  

I can't find any trace of Ida Cole, or Ida Dufour-Cole, in 1921, or in the 1939 Register either.  In 1937, when the patent was granted, she was presumably living at the address in Cambridge given on the patent, and she was the manageress of a clothes shop in Cambridge (she appeared as a witness in the prosecution of a shoplifter).  

In 1940, the Wonder Series pattern leaflets were being published under the name J. D.-Cole.  The address on the leaflets is The Spinning Wheel, 22 Gloucester Road, London, which appears to have been a shop selling toys and yarns, from a post-war ad. You could order Wonder-Socks to be knitted for you, via the Spinning Wheel. One of the leaflets (probably a slightly later edition) claims: 'These leaflets can be obtained from all the leading Wool Shops and Stationers', and as one of the functions of the leaflets was to advertise the knitting service, she may have had mail-order customers for socks all over the country - and must have had a team of knitters to make Wonder-Socks. She doesn't seem to have used the pattern leaflets as a vehicle for selling wool - the leaflets say that you can use any 'good standard wool'.    

The KCG collection also has a later pattern in the Wonder Series, for leather moccasins.  The pattern pieces are drawn on the other side of the sheet, to be traced onto something else, e.g. a sheet of newspaper. (The 'Save Coupons' message shows that this leaflet was printed while clothes rationing was in force (1941 to 1949) when everything including paper was in short supply. That's why you got the pattern on just one sheet of paper, and you would not use blank sheets of paper to trace the pattern pieces onto, when newspaper would work just as well.) 

The moccasin pattern lists the other leaflets in the Wonder Series then available.  There are seven knitting leaflets, including the three shown in this post, and eleven leather charts.  In addition, five children's leaflets are listed, four of them for soft toys, I imagine - Bambi, Thumper, Flower and Teddy Bear.  The first three are characters in the Disney film Bambi, which came out in 1942, giving an earliest date for the leaflet.  The fifth pattern is for a Pop-gun (no idea).  

I assume that Ida Cole used her dress-making experience in designing the moccasins and other leather items  - certainly the pair illustrated look very expertly made.  The leaflet doesn't offer to make the moccasins for you, unlike the socks, though I suspect that many customers would not have the leather-working skills to be able to produce such a good result. 

Ida Cole died in London in 1955, and was buried in Burwell, where she was born. I'd like to know more about her, because she seems to have been a successful woman, making her own way in the world, without apparently any support from her mysterious husband.  And inventing and making a living from an ingenious sock design is a commendable achievement, it seems to me. 

Members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild can have copies of the Wonder-Sock and Sun Ray Gloves pattern leaflets - email requests to collections@kcguild.org.uk.