There’s a lot of debate over which is better, knitting socks or fashion socks. Fashion socks obviously look better because they’re cheaper, but knitting socks are always sturdy and hold up much better than their more expensive counterparts. For the most part, fashion socks are made from materials such as cotton, silk, and polyester that don’t hold up nearly as long. You could say that fashion is basically disposable. Unless you’re actually knitting socks with the toughest wool knitted on a firm gauge, and probably in a really well washed condition, hand knit socks will simply wear out.
Knitting socks can be done with circular knitting needles. The advantage of using circular knitting needles is that they take up less space than the larger flat needles. You can easily fit more circular knitting needles into a square inch of knitting fabric than you could with a pair of standard knitting needles. Circular knitting needles can also produce a finer finished product because they can twist finer yarns than other needles.
Fashion socks are typically machine manufactured, because knitting them by hand takes time. The final product, of course, doesn’t come from a spinning loom, so you won’t be able to use your knitting skills much. This means that there may be less attention to detail in fashion sock knitting, which can lead to mistakes during the knitting process. Socks knitters often prefer to use a knitting machine since knitting by hand may be too difficult and time consuming for them.