repeated washings.

No matter how much care is taken in the knitting, making up, or other stages of production, it is impossible for all stockings of a given foot size and quality to be produced to exactly the same length. This variation may be due to slight differences in individual knitting heads on the machines. It should be noted that these multi-headed machines knit at a rate of over one million stitches per minute. Unlike shoes, stockings are not made to be worn on any particular foot—a pair of stockings is simply two stockings of exactly the same colour, quality, yarn and size. there is no possibility of variation in a given batch from the dye works other than in length. It is the duty of the folders to pair up stockings of precisely the same length.

Pairing is done by skilled and experienced operatives, who take a batch of stockings and spread them on glass-topped tables, selecting those of identical length and folding them ready for the next operation, and adding to those that they have on the table until all of any given batch are paired up exactly.

Another of the jobs that the folder does is to remove from the batch of stockings those that for any reason should not be sold as first quality products, and to set them aside according to their condition, as seconds, thirds or damaged.