Sock Day!

Today, for me, is all about socks.

Knitting socks, wearing socks (of COURSE! It's cold here in Minne-SNOW-ta), and darning socks!

Hubby and I love wearing these wonderful wool socks from Eddie Bauer (plus the ones I make.) Trouble is, some of the pairs we've had for a few years are starting to wear out, or actually break open holes.

Hubby brought me a pair a few days ago with a dime-size hole in the toe and asked if there was any hope for them. I looked carefully and said, "Sure, I bet I could fix these."

Yesterday I decided I'd dive right in. I looked up darning socks on the net and found a great tutorial. Sock in hand, burnt out light bulb placed inside (what? I'm not proud), and some leftover yarn from these socks and I was good to go.

It was so easy! And took about 20 minutes to fix. Hubby was uber pleased. (He'll get a kick out of it that I said uber when he reads this later.)

Fast forward to today, he asked if I felt like fixing any more of his socks. He brought me three pairs: two of which had dime-sized hole(s) in the toe, and one poor pair that had four ginormous holes in the ribbing on the leg. I told him there was no way they could be fixed - they were really really bad. So we tied knots in those and gave them to the dogs.

The last pair I decided to shoot pics of the process. Enjoy!


Ohh, the poor things. These had two holes in the toe. Luckily these were knit with reinforcing thread all the way through so they were much easier and quicker to fix since the wool was the only part to break apart.







This pic is after the first row of duplicated and new stitches. You can still see some of the bare reinforcement thread.













Here you can see the hole closed, just one more row of duplicated stitches and it'll be good as new!













And here's the finished sock with both holes mended. I found this process not only rewarding, but also fun! (Excuse the dark areas on hubby's sock - he wears a lot of dark shoes.)













And here are the two pairs that are on my needles right now!

A pair for me:













These will the Monkey socks from Knitty. The yarn I'm using is Anne from Schaefer Yarn Company in the Rosa Parks colorway. I love how they're striping! I hope I can get the second sock to stripe this way. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here's a close up:













Aren't those colors gorgeous?

And here's a pair that I'm working on for hubby:













These are just a variation on my own sock pattern with Austermann Step Sock Yarn in the Jeans colorway. I love how these are turning out and they're so soft and squishy!

So that's what I'll be doing today while we're getting buried under the snow.

Uh, yea. Did I forget to mention that? There's about 3 1/2 feet (FEET, people) of snow outside my front door.

Minne-SNOW-ta is friggin' right. Land of the Great White Shroud.