Knitted Stockings

The blogs have all been full of winter this week.  Well except those in Australia, where they are all about summer, but those of us in the Northern hemisphere have been getting ready for the cold weather to come.
I thought this was a super opportunity to knit something warm, when I came across these two beauties in a pattern book I found in an antique store.

"Grandma kept warm in tights..." exclaims the headline. "Modern women are wearing full length wool stockings like these for smart heat conservation.  They are flattering and comfortable."

Wow, I thought,  I have to get this!  The book dates from 1942, and if you look very closely, you can see that the pair on the right is actually held up with your normal, everyday suspender belt/garter belt.
They are knitted at a tiny 17 sts per 2 inches, 12 rounds to an inch.  Since this is vintage Beehive 2ply Scotch fingering - a 9st per inch gauge/tension was normal!  There were 230 yards to the skeins, and you needed 4-5 skeins, depending on your shoe size.
The sizes of the pattern have actually caused me a little confusion.  They both claim to be for sizes 9-10-11, which seems on the large size for back then... and since it plainly states that change of size occurs in length of foot only, then I can assume that these are in fact the shoe sizes.  I would guess you could easily change the size of the foot to fit your own however :)
Because, yes, I am feeling incredibly generous, and am sharing this pattern with you ;)
As always, these patterns are for personal use only, and NOT for resale.  But you can do what you like with anything you make from it, just share pattern credits ;)

You can get your pattern here: 1942 Knitted Stockings Happy Knitting!