I’m so slow at knitting socks, but love it anyway. They’re the perfect travel project so I’ve usually got a pair on the go in my little drawstring bag and have got myself into all kinds of conversations with strangers in public as a result.
The ones pictured you might recognise as “Hermione’s Everyday Socks”, and they were technically the third pair I ever made but the first two were awful and we’re not counting those. First proper socks, hurrah!
The yarn was a weird cone of nonsense that I’d picked up from a shop called Yarnia in Portland during a big month-long USA road trip we went on in 2015. Basically you chose your fibres and colours and they’d wind a cone of yarn to that specification.
Or, if you’re a wimp like me, you could just buy a pre-wound cone and trust it had the right stuff in it for socks which is exactly what I did.
These babies lasted me until late last year then started to wear through on the ball of the foot, I’ve kept them safe and can hopefully learn to repair them. Any advice in that area would be very welcome!
The repair method you’re asking about is called darning! If you’ve got yarn leftover (or even just yarn in the same weight class), you can patch the holes without needing to take the socks apart. This article explains how to do it and you can get darning eggs on Etsy but I’ve also seen tennis balls recommended. Anything that you can use to hold the sock like it’s being worn while you’re working will do it. Sock darning tutorial’s over here.
If/when the heel wears out, you can also replace it with an afterthought heel I use this method once in a while for different colored heels instead of doing a heel flap/gusset. You can also use this for different colored toes and repairing them as they wear out. How to do an afterthought heel For doing both of these, I’d recommend putting in a life line on the row of stitches below what you’re removing to hold the rest of the sock while you work. (Any contrasting sock yarn or thin nylon cord would work fine for this).
Thanks, I will take a look at these after work. Thankfully I’ve kept the remains of the exact yarn because you know, yarn hoarding lol. So fingers crossed I can get these back into the rotation!
Yeah just go slowly with it and it should work out! And lol that’s a mood. It’s not hoarding if I keep telling myself I’ll use the leftovers for a blanket.
You can also use a small bowl, or an orange, or just about anything, really.
These are beautiful!
Thank you! There’s definitely a reason I wore them to (the sock version of) death 😅
Hermione’s are my top favourite sock pattern, but I also like Zigzagulars https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zigzagular-socks.
I’ve knitted dozens of pairs of socks but still have to try knitting two at once.
Ooh that one does look fun! I’ve got some sock yarn dyed for me by a kind Redditor for a gift exchange and been looking for the perfect pattern that won’t get lost in among all the colour variegation but as your excellent example there shows, this might be perfect.
I mentioned in the post that there were two pairs before these ones? What happened there was I bought the same (turned out itchy and horrible) self-striping yarn in two different colours and tried to make his and hers socks for me and the bf. I did those two at a time and honestly it put me off ever trying again! But maybe it was more the horrible yarn and the fact it was my first time, who knows. If you ever do try it, please report back 😄
deleted by creator
I got a little too quick on the post button there.
I’m not a big sock knitter, but I recently got a notice from gmail about an email address I had completely forgotten about that I set up for a sock swap in 2007 and it reminded me how much I liked the socks. The pattern is Baudelaire by Cookie A. and the yarn was Cherry Tree Hill.
Fun story is that I knit those socks almost entirely during the load screens while I was playing Oblivion on XBox, lol.
Your Hermione socks are really lovely. I’m amazed at how long they lasted. I feel like I start to wear through in just a wear or two.
