by Ardeana Hamlin
of The Weekly Staff
I never wear shoes with the socks I knit for myself. I wear the socks to bed, and eventually, the heels wear out. It’s the way of all my handknit socks — put enough miles on them, or enough time under the covers, and the heels of the socks disintegrate.
Recently, I discovered another hole in a pair of socks I knit a few years ago in gold-flecked- with-brown wool. Both socks already had been darned, and now there was a new hole in the heel of one sock. I debated — throw them out, find a way to recycle them or darn them? I hated to toss them in the trash and no recycling ideas came immediately to mind. That left darning. But I don’t like to darn. I’m not very good at it and I have no desire to improve my skills. What I wanted was a different way to mend the hole without resorting to darning.
Why not patch it?
At first, it seemed like a daffy idea, but the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. I figured since I didn’t ever wear shoes with the socks I knit, I wouldn’t have to deal with the bunchiness a patch would produce. Applying a patch would take less time to do, and simpler than darning. I also figured that if patching didn’t work, nothing would be lost. But if it did work, I’d have the perfect way to avoid darning any future holes that appeared in my trove of handknit socks.
Obviously, the patch wasn’t going to be made from woven cloth. A knit sock needed a knit patch.
The first problem confronting me as I went about figuring how to carry out the sock patching idea was what yarn to use since I no longer had yarn that matched the socks. However, I had an odd ball of wool yarn in a shade of gold a bit paler than the hue of the socks. It was a sport weight rather than a worsted weight which gave me pause, but I didn’t let that stop me. I took a pair of No. 2 knitting needles, cast on 14 stitches and working in stockinette stitch — knit one row, purl one row — and fashioned the sock patch.
When I finished knitting 10 minutes later, the patch measured approximately 1.5 inches square. I snipped the yarn and left a long tail. The patch covered the hole in the sock perfectly.
I threaded a big-eyed blunt needle with the long tail of yarn and sewed the patch over the hole using blind stitches. Then, I turned the sock wrong side out and with another length of yarn, made a circle of small running stitches around the edges of the hole.
It wasn’t a lovely fix by any means, but it worked. It meant the sock’s life had been extended and that I had avoided a stint of darning.
I didn’t really need to mend the hole in the sock. I have other handknit socks — none with holes in them — yet.
What I liked about mending the hole was figuring out an alternative way to do it. That I had returned the socks to useful service was an added bonus.
When another hole appears in the socks, I’m not going to repair them. I’m going to felt them and figure out if I can turn an old felted sock into a toy animal. Maybe a lion. Stay tuned.