Lifecycle of a Sock
The other day I was wearing a pair of my handknit socks, as usual. This pair I remember knitting on the year before Julie was born, so they must have been about 5 years old, and have been in fairly steady rotation all winter long since then. The yarn is Lang Jawoll, and the only pair I've ever made from this brand because it contains some acrylic and they tend to get a bit swampy. Still, the colorway goes well with blue jeans, so they got regular wear anyway.
Five years is quite a good long life for a sock, handknit or not. On this particular day last week, I realized that they had lived just about to the end of their life.
The heel was just about ready to poke on through the sole, and the toe was getting quite thin.
I generally subscribe to the Yarn Harlot's school of thought of darning socks, which involves standing over a trash can and saying "darn it!" Really, I have tried darning socks in the past, and find it not worth bothering for several reasons. 1. I would much rather be knitting on a new sock than sewing on an old one. 2. I would much rather be wearing a new sock than an old one with lumpy darns at the heels and toes. 3. Never fails - patch up one hole on a sock, and the yarn next door starts giving way after a few more wears.
I did have a little light-bulb moment as I was pondering all this once again, though. I'm going to start saving my blown-out socks and maybe some day there will be enough of them to cut up and make a blanket out of - the nice stretch of stockinette fabric on the ankles generally stays in great shape, and it would be easy to stabilize it with some machine knitting, open the tube up and sew all the chunks together. I don't know if or when it will actually happen, but it couldn't hurt to hold on to the old socks just in case, right?
In the mean time, and just in time, my Fleece Artist Seawool socks were nearly finished. It really is magical how you can spend a few minutes casting on a sock, and then by simply stealing a few minutes here and there, knitting during a meeting or some other down moment in the car, you suddenly have a new pair of socks.
I took a little time away from the blankie over the weekend and voila!
Joe even agreed to take a happy-feet shot. (Rolling his eyes the entire time, I assure you.)
And finally, just in time for Valentine's Day, the new socks are taking center stage on my non-blankie knitting agenda. Vesper Sock Yarn's Love Stinks colorway.
You may remember that I had started this pair using the Rainbow something-or-other pattern with all the short rows. I frogged it back and am now knitting them plain-jane stockinette, and am very happy. Love no longer stinks!
Five years is quite a good long life for a sock, handknit or not. On this particular day last week, I realized that they had lived just about to the end of their life.
The heel was just about ready to poke on through the sole, and the toe was getting quite thin.
I generally subscribe to the Yarn Harlot's school of thought of darning socks, which involves standing over a trash can and saying "darn it!" Really, I have tried darning socks in the past, and find it not worth bothering for several reasons. 1. I would much rather be knitting on a new sock than sewing on an old one. 2. I would much rather be wearing a new sock than an old one with lumpy darns at the heels and toes. 3. Never fails - patch up one hole on a sock, and the yarn next door starts giving way after a few more wears.
I did have a little light-bulb moment as I was pondering all this once again, though. I'm going to start saving my blown-out socks and maybe some day there will be enough of them to cut up and make a blanket out of - the nice stretch of stockinette fabric on the ankles generally stays in great shape, and it would be easy to stabilize it with some machine knitting, open the tube up and sew all the chunks together. I don't know if or when it will actually happen, but it couldn't hurt to hold on to the old socks just in case, right?
In the mean time, and just in time, my Fleece Artist Seawool socks were nearly finished. It really is magical how you can spend a few minutes casting on a sock, and then by simply stealing a few minutes here and there, knitting during a meeting or some other down moment in the car, you suddenly have a new pair of socks.
I took a little time away from the blankie over the weekend and voila!
Joe even agreed to take a happy-feet shot. (Rolling his eyes the entire time, I assure you.)
And finally, just in time for Valentine's Day, the new socks are taking center stage on my non-blankie knitting agenda. Vesper Sock Yarn's Love Stinks colorway.
You may remember that I had started this pair using the Rainbow something-or-other pattern with all the short rows. I frogged it back and am now knitting them plain-jane stockinette, and am very happy. Love no longer stinks!
Labels: FO
posted by Shelly Kang at 1:23 PM
7 Comments:
Hey - it looks like you do the heels that I can't quite manage to figure out how to do without pulling my hair out by the fist-fulls. Is that the heel where you mark it with waste yarn and come back to it later? If it is, can you recommend a good book with a description on how to do it?
Glad everyone is feeling better!
I've been pondering the question of fixing vs. knitting new socks myself lately. Thanks for reinforcing my natural inclination. I'm sort of thinking the old socks will be great for packing glassware if I ever move again. But I like your blanket idea.
If it doesn't work out, you could always use the frogged yarn to stuff a toy or pillow or something.
Save them and sew them together! Cheezze, why didn't I think of that? I tried frogging some hole-y socks, thinking that I could re-use the yarn in my Mitered Square blankie but they had felted just enough that they wouldn't frog.
In my weaving days I gathered up silk neckties (back in the day when you could buy them at Goodwill for $1 a bag) cut them up and wove vests and kimono-style jackets of the silk. I was exchanging tips on this type of weaving with another weaver and she asked "And what did you do with the hair canvas (a special type of interfacing used in neckties)?" I was feeling like the re-cycling queen but hadn't even thought that there would be SOMETHING that could be done with the interfacing. Do you have a close relative who weaves? I think you must be related to her.
Other ideas for old socks, cut the foot off and refashion as wrist warmers,
Baby Leg warmers.
You could always make sock animals out of the old socks. You end up cutting them up anyway so you'd just discard the holey parts. There's a super cute book out there on how to make sock monsters... http://www.amazon.com/Stupid-Sock-Creatures-Lovable-Cast-off/dp/1579906109/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203184377&sr=8-1
I had the same idea for my old socks.. assuming I don't get around to making stupid sock creatures out of them first. :)
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