Time for Some Darning

Uh Oh...

Today was sock inspection day...come on don't y'all do that?  After hand washing all my knitted socks I check them out for holes, thin areas, wear, etc before I put them back in the drawer.  Well to be honest I actually don't do it every time, but maybe I should start considering what I found today.  The count was 3 pairs needing some major attention.  Rather than toss my hand knit socks I'd much rather fix them since there is quite a bit of time (and money) spent knitting them.  My dear husband never fails to mention that he can get "a pair of socks for less than $5 at the store."  No hand knit socks for him!
 
One poor sock had already developed a nice sized hole (over 1 inch) in the heel area.  Question:  how does one put on a sock, wear it and not notice the hole until after it has been washed and dried?  The mate was hole free, but definitely thin in the same area.  The other 2 pairs I caught before the dreaded hole occurred...merely thin, critically thin. I had little on the agenda for the day so I decided to spend some time mending my socks. 

Feeling better...no hole!

Thankfully I still had remnants of each yarn I had used on each pair of socks.  Even had them separated out based on color so finding each one was a breeze.  The darning wasn't near as quick.  I took a new approach to my holey sock.  I recently discovered a different method...rather than the old fashioned method of weaving the yarns over the hole.   This new (to me) method was to knit an actual "patch" over the hole.  I started off by picking up stitches in an area that was still in good shape below the hole.  I then picked up a few stitches on each side up to the hole and started knitting and purling back and forth until each pickup side stitch had been worked.  Once this was done the hole was mostly covered and I grafted the remaining stitched into picked up stitches above the hole.  It looks so much better than the old method since the section is knitted rather than woven.



Inside the sock's heel

The idea is for the edges of the sock to felt together with the new portion of the heel.  You can see how much the interior of my sock has felted and the stitches are not clearly defined.  I left all the loose edges alone with the hope that these will felt together with wear over time.  I really love how this method looks when compared to the old way of darning.  Maybe it will last longer with the double thickness of yarn.


Check out the Knit Pick video on hole repair...part 1 and part 2.




Start of Swiss Darning...or duplicate stitch

The other two socks received the Swiss Darning method...or duplicate stitch.  Super simple as long as there were still stitches in place.  The really thin areas were a bit nerve wracking since I was afraid I'd break the threads.  Knit Picks also has another set of videos showing her method...part 1 and part 2.

The completed heel