with the yarn carriers feeding the low stretch yarns 27 to opposed needles of the front and back beds to knit a seamless course of stitches along the full breadth w 1 of the sock in the toe area 12 with loops at the course extremities interconnected all of the back bed needles are then deactivated while the front bed needles continue knitting but are gradually deactivated from the opposite ends of each course to form inwardly tapered sides of a back panel 12a of toe area 12 with a tip 20 of breadth w 2 the needles of the front row which were deactivated are then reactivated in reverse order to form outwardly tapered sides of a front panel 12b of toe area 12 until the full width w 1 is reached loops 22 at the opposite extremities of each course of panels 12a and 12b are joined to form a seamless toe area the knitting process with the needles in both beds then continues with back and front panels 14a and 14b joined in like manner to form foot area 14 up to a course located at the beginning of heel pocket 16 along the back panel 14a as illustrated by dotted line b 1 heel pocket 16 is then formed by inactivating all of the back bed needles while knitting continues on the front bed needles with needles from opposite ends of the course being gradually.