The Nine Tailors

The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully-tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations…. His passion – and it is a passion – finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed.
Dorothy Sayers,
The Nine Tailors
The paradox of The Nine Tailors is that it both is and isn’t all about change-ringing. You don’t actually have to know the first thing about change-ringing to read and enjoy the novel; you don’t actually have to know the first thing about change-ringing to knit the sock.

But the better you understand change-ringing, the more satisfaction you will get out of both.

The sock is a celebration of the novel, of the mystery, of Lord Peter Wimsey, of East Anglian churches… but first and foremost of change-ringing, and especially of the ringing method called Kent Treble Bob Major. It appears in two forms here; as a coded colorwork panel (if you’ve read the book you’ll know just why the panel is exactly 74 rows long and why the 8th strand is green…) –
– and as a twisted mini-cable that strongly resembles the method diagram.
Here is one of the gilded angels of the Angel Roof, with emeralds hidden at its feet.
The decorative features on toe and heel are optional as usual – a little eyelet bell on the toe,
and a continuation of the bell cable down the heel flap – looks very elegant in an open-backed clog.

The sock is worked cuff-down, beginning at the base of the Angel Roof.

Optional Accessory:
Bell Markers
These are offered separately – they are not actually necessary, but if you are knitting the twist panel from place notation, you may find them useful. For further explanation, click here