So for a while now, I’ve had a pile of hand knit socks, 5 pairs in total that have been taken out of circulation to repair.

They don’t have holes as such, yet… but after losing several pairs of socks to unexpected holes, I’m a lot more vigilant now at spotting trouble. That is the stitches around the heel and or the ball of the foot have become thin and thread-bare and recently, some of them were just holding on when I discovered them. Whilst I know you can repair socks that have said holes in them, that’s a lot more work and darning; and to be honest those socks have gone to ‘sock heaven’.

I took the opportunity of the long weekend to tackle some of these repairs.

Before:

Eep!

See that sneaky little spot emerging under the ball of my foot…

And my Noro socks, just a random thin row of knitting, I didn’t want to chance it.

So I duplicate stitched EVERYTHING, bad/thin looking stitches and the stitches that were holding hands with those stitches.

The repairs were almost invisible on my Wollmeise socks.

My lilac socks (Dream in Colour Smooshy), needed a larger area of duplicate stitching and it took some time to cover it. Interestingly, of all these pairs, these were the quickest to wear… I even had the foresight to use ‘knitting-in nylon’ when knitting the foot… it didn’t help.

And my Noro socks, took no time at all to cover over the weakened row of stitches.

That’s 3 pairs of socks back into wearing circulation and I’m pumped. Just 2 more pairs to go and I’m sworn off ever knitting another pair of socks without any nylon content.