Restoring Socks

Waste Not, Want Not

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Socks – Restored

Patsy wondered whether I could fix holes in the feet of her socks. I’d have to see, I told her. Depends on the size and location of the holes. (These were socks she bought from me to give to her daughters, I thought, a couple of Christmases ago – looks like she kept a pair for herself! Well loved, I could see.)

Well, not only were there substantial holes in the ball of the foot, the heels were threadbare, as well. No point in trying to reknit the holes. Better to salvage the legs and reknit new feet.

I went to my leftover yarn stash to see whether I still had a ball of the original yarn tucked in there. No luck, didn’t find any. I did find another pattern that looked like it would complement the original pattern. I cut off the feet just at the start of the heel, and reknit new feet.

It takes 4-5 days to knit a length of leg – so 8-9 days, say, to knit a pair of legs. Half the job done. It’s worth my time and effort to salvage legs and knit new feet. She’ll get another couple of years wear from these like-new socks.

The match between the two socks isn’t absolutely perfect, but close enough that if I didn’t mention it, I’m not sure Patsy would even notice the discrepancy.

I’ll knock on her door with these later today!

Worked out pretty well, huh?

More Socks

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Blue Socks

Not much to say here. Just another pair of socks. These have a home already. My friend Patsy has a friend who is willing to buy a pair of hand-knit socks. She wears a size 7 shoe so I’ve made the foot on these a wee bit smaller than I would normally hoping they’ll fit without having to shorten them for her. I’ll send them via Patsy when I’ve finished adding new feet to a pair of well-worn socks of hers.

Legs Salvaged With New Heels

I cut off the worn feet, picked up stitches on the legs, knit new heels on each. Last night I knit the gusset on one of the socks then spliced in another variegated yarn – sort of close to this pattern. I don’t seem to have any leftover from this particular ball of yarn so I’m using whatever I have. There’s enough yarn in the ball to knit two feet but I’m not sure I can get the two feet to match. They’ll be inside her shoes so I’m not worried about any mismatch that happens.

Socks Restored

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Finished restoring these two pair of socks last night.

They were holdovers from a batch I restored well over a year ago. After replacing heels in a half-dozen pair of socks I’d had enough. This pair, however, although I had set up for new heels – I’d run a stitch-holding thread where the heel began and though the instep, cut out the worn heel – I put them aside.

Socks Renovated!

Marlene’s birthday is at the end of the month. I thought it time to repair these two pair of socks and give them back to her. These were two of the original Kaffe Fassett yarns I’d bought a long time ago. The original heels used the rust/brown yarn but I had none in my stash and couldn’t find any in town so I matched up the dark blue, instead. Works fine.

Both pairs look like new socks. They should each get another couple years of wear.

Reconstruction #3

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This is the last of the “legs only” reconstructions. The heels and underfeet were so worn they were unsalvageable. I saved the legs and knit new feet.

Reconstruction #3

Who will notice? The feet are inside shoes/sneakers anyway. And the socks are, for all intents and purposes, new. My friend will be happy to get them back in her sock drawer.

That leaves two pairs needing new heels – those are put aside for now. I’m knitting new socks with new yarn at the moment.

Resurrecting Socks

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I’m back at regenerating socks from the pile in my “Fix” sock basket. I started with somewhere like eight pairs of socks to restore – some needed just heels, others needed full feet. I repaired (replaced heels on) three pairs a number of months ago but there were still five pairs in the basket. I started working on those where I was able to salvage legs only a couple of weeks ago. It’s still worth repairing these socks – the legs are fine and that saves me about a week’s work. The challenge is to come up with variegated yarn that kind of fits in with the original pattern. So far, I’ve done rather well.

Here’s the first pair I completed ten days ago. They were delivered back to the owner who thought they looked familiar but didn’t remember giving them to me for repairs.

Resurrected Socks 1

This is the second pair I finished last evening. It took six days to reknit the feet and the yarn I used works quite well.

Resurrected Socks 2

I’ve started on the third pair of legs – that will leave me two pairs that need just heels – they won’t take a lot of time. I’m probably not going to work on those immediately, however. I want to continue building up the stash of new socks – Christmas is coming and I’ll want to give some socks as gifts.