Improvements in and connected with Stockings and Socks.
Year: 1892

page_text: Date of Application, 20th Dec., 1892
Complete Specification Left, 20th Sept., 1893-Accepted, 28th Oct., 1893
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in and connected with Stockings and Socks.
ALFRED LAIT 12 Portland Road Clarendon Park Leicester do hereby declare
the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
An improvement in the construction of hose being an addition of a woven strap
or elongation of the hose or half hose, on one side, so they may be attached to the
stays, band, or other wearing apparel, thus supporting the hose or half hose without
garters.
19th December 1892.
ALFRED LAIT,
12, Portland Road, Clarendon Park, Leicester, Commercial Traveller.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in and connected with Stockings and Socks.
I, ALFRED LAIT of 12 Portland Road, Clarendon Park, Leicester, Traveller,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same
is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :―
My invention relates to improvements in and connected with stockings
and socks.
The object of the invention is to dispense with the necessity of wearing garters
or other similar injurious supporting devices and the desired result is accomplished
by knitting to or combining with a stocking or sock an elongation or extension
sufficiently long to reach near the waist of the wearer, and provided, by preference,
with button-holes so as to admit of being attached to the corset, band or other part
of the underclothing and by this means supporting the stocking or sock.
The invention will be thoroughly understood by reference to the accompanying
drawing in which
Figures 1 and 2 are views of stockings provided with extensions for supporting
the same and
Figure 3 is a view of the extension or strap detached.
A is the stocking, B the strap or extension and B₁ the button-holes in the
latter.
In Figure 1, the stocking represented is supposed to have been made upon
a straight bar knitting frame and the strap is made by preference by placing out of
action a series of the outer needles on each side of the leg fabric and continuing to
knit upon a certain number of the centre needles variable according to the width of
the strap or extension B desired.
The button-holes B' can either be made by transferring stitches to adjacent
needles so that at subsequent courses in the strap no loops or stitches are produced,
or by cutting a button-hole in the said strap and binding round the edge thereof to
keep the fabric from unravelling.
In Figure 2 representing a circular or seamless stocking the strap may be
produced by reciprocating the thread carrier over a portion of the needles, the
number of the latter being regulated by the width of the strap, and the button-holes
left therein as described with reference to the foregoing figure.
Instead of knitting the strap as a continuation of the leg fabric it may consist of
a knitted tube of smaller diameter connected to the former either by hand seaming
or any of the "seaming machines" used in the hosiery trade.

page_text: It is obvious that the strap or elongation may be formed in other ways than those
described.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed; I declare that what I
claim is
1. A stocking or sock provided with a strap or elongation and means for
attaching the latter to the underclothing of the wearer substantially as and for the
purpose described.
2. A stocking or sock having a strap or elongation provided with button-holes
knitted thereto substantially as and for the purpose described.
3. The improved stocking constructed substantially in the manner and for the
purpose described and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
Dated this 20th day of September 1893.
W. P. THOMPSON & BOULT,
Agents for the Applicant.