It Had to Happen…
Well, yes, I eventually had to write a blog post. And it had to be about knitting. But that’s not what I’m talking about.
I knit socks. Lots of socks. Some for me, some for friends, and many, many for Stinky who is 1) a hand-knit sock aficionado and 2) a little boy. So, knowing that hand-knit socks are made to be walked through and knowing that little boys are harder on their clothes than the average human, it had to happen. Stinky put a hole in one of his hand-knit socks. And it had to be repaired. Now, many of you may be asking yourselves “why bother?” and those of you who know the answer to that may be asking yourselves “you know how to darn a sock?”
Let’s start with “why bother?” Well, first because I put many hours of knitting into those socks. They’re good socks. And it was good yarn. And I don’t like to throw away things that can be repaired. And this sock definitely could be repaired.
Now, about the darning. I don’t know how to do it. My 98-year old grandmother does, but she lives in Portland and doesn’t hear real well anymore, so calling her probably wasn’t my best option. My best option was one of the many excellent tutorial videos/articles out here in cyberspace. Did I avail myself of this option? No, but not for the reasons you might think (laziness, wanting to try to work it out myself, etc.). No, I didn’t even try to darn the sock because it didn’t take too much inspection to figure out…
it was probably beyond darning. In case the picture is not worth a thousand words, the entire toe was blown out. I decided to cut the toe out, pick up live stitches, and re-knit a new toe. You know, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. [Note to readers: The next few sentences may get rather boring technical.] I cut the damaged section well before the toe-decrease rows started to give myself room to rip back a few rows so that the live stitches I would be picking up for the repair job would all be on the same row and easy to grab. I then used a magnifying lamp to pick out and unravel any partial rows.
Once I got a full row unraveled, I continued unraveling to the point where the toe decreases were supposed to start. I kept track of this by watching where the instep ribbing stopped, but I also measured and compared to the other sock, just to make sure. I picked up the live stitches and got them properly arranged on the needles and I was ready to re-knit. I even found a ball of the exact same yarn in the leftover sock yarn part of the stash.
And you know what? No problem. I went from this–
to this–
and it didn’t take more than an hour or so to do it (including finding the yarn).
I highly recommend using the magnifying lamp for these sorts of jobs and I have one other, extremely important, piece of hard-won wisdom for you. Wash the sock before you repair it. P.U.!
When you pick up the sts, use the smallest needle size you have…000 or 00 or whatever. It’s sooooo much easier to get the sts on the needles. It doesn’t affect the size of the sts because that’s determined by the size of the needle the st is knitted on to, not the size of the needle it is knitted from.
Good job on fixing them. I have darned the ones I have but my son really can go through a pair of socks in a hurry.
Hi Amber! I’m a fan of The Mouthy Housewives too! In fact, I was the woman without a clue as to where the cat food came from and your comment was right on! My own sleuting deduced that it was, in fact me, that purchased the fud – but it was my husband who moved said fud into the laundry room (which he denies) only to leave me bemused and perplexed. I had the privilege of dining with author Wendi last week – she is as funny in person as she is on the blog.
Best to you! Are you really a Jesus freak, or is that a sarcastic label for your readers?
Hi Diane. Thanks for commenting. I’m glad my comment helped with the great cat food mystery. Hmmm…maybe I should start my own reality show “Mysteries: Small & Weird”. Maybe not.
If anyone else is reading, check The Mouthy Housewives blog and search “cat food”.
Anyway, to answer your question, yes, I really am a Jesus freak, but not in the contemporary, angry, shouting, only one right answer and it’s mine kind of way. More in the 1970’s painted VW bus, peace and love for all creatures great and small (except cockroaches) kind of way.
For the needle-impaired, here is what I picked up from somewhere in the repository of literature:
Pull the sock over a drinking glass. This will expand the hole as well as the interstices betwixt the warp and weft of the material (excuse the language, but all I know about sewing I learned in Homers’ description of looms).
Then you just run a thread back and forth until the hole is no more.
What you get is a mangled pulling together of material, but hey at least it isn’t a hole. It resembles a gnashing wound cauterized after a Civil War battle but at least you didn’t have to pay for another pair of wool socks.
At least, that is how we hotdog-fingered schmucks do it when we do not have knitters in our lives. Have pity
Brilliant. As usual.