Abstract: A circular knitting machine for knitting a sock having a pocket knitted integrally with the foot portion includes a needle cylinder carrying long and short butt needles, a drive train for oscillating the needle cylinder in a normal first mode and a second mode 180 degrees out of phase relative to the first mode, a pair of needle raising cams positionable so as to engage only the long butt needles during the knitting of the toe pocket, a lifter for holding the long butt needles in an up position during the knitting of the toe pocket, and a pair of stitch cam for engaging the needles to form the stitches. During the formation of the toe pocket, the short butt needles are pushed downwardly out of action below the knitting height while maintaining their stitches and the long butt needles are oscillated 180 degrees out of phase to form the toe pocket.