The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology houses an impressive textile collection and objects reflecting the variety of skilled small scale crafts in the ancient world, such as basketry, leather work, knitting and sprang. 

Flinders Petrie was himself very interested in how things were made and technologies. It is in this spirit that the museum has had a number of events and plan to do more exploring how we can make these objects and recreate these skills today.

Sock it! Making An Egyptian Sock from Scratch

Funded by Museums Libraries Archives (MLA), a group comprising U3A members as well as members of the public at drop in events embarked on a project to make two-toed socks, based on the ones dating from c.400-500 AD in the Petrie Museum, from scratch using, as far as possible, methods employed in Ancient Egypt. This took place from October 2009 to March 2010.

It was an experimental archaeology project and the emphasis was on the actual processes of making things and experiences on the way!

We recorded our progress on a blog, which you can read for more information, photos, videos on how to do single needle knitting and more patterns created by the U3A group.

Access a guide to the technique of single needle knitting and a pattern for your very own two-toed sock: Sock it!