brokebottom hollow

Posted on Posted in projects, Uncategorized

i might have mentioned before that my husband adores handknit socks.
he wears them exclusively all winter long. i’m pretty sure that if he’s not wearing handknit, he’s barefoot. actually, he wears them to death. for years he has been insisting that there must be a way to fix broken sox. that the tops could be reused and new bottoms knit on (yeah, i know. i spent about 5 minutes analyzing the attractiveness of the project). or, that new pieces could be inserted where there were wear patterns; feasibility here, about zero. look at the kind of “wear patterns” we are talking about:

personally, my vote for recycling them has always been to send them to the circular file. just look at this:

you can see right through BOTH layers of this sock! with a hole like this, who needs bare feet? it’s the same with his felt clogs. he wears them til the holes are so big, i have to remind him that his nice socks will wear out that way.

now, just for the record, it’s not that i have not kept up. trust me, he has plenty of new, good socks. and if he didn’t, i could have him all tricked out in a week or so; sox aren’t that hard for me to reel off. he just feels that if there is any good part left, he should use it til it’s gone, i guess.

i mean, i know all about getting attached to ratty old clothes; it is a tradition passed on by my father and upheld in this home. i know the soothing balm of soft, comfy, broken-in fabric against an irritated soul. that is the first thing i run for when i walk in the door from a day out. but, (and, correct me if i’m wrong) that is different than broken clothes. and anyway, i don’t think this is about that. it’s more about not wasting something good.

after finally noticing how many of david’s socks are really, really, over, i gave him the last three pairs in my stockpile, and slated this month as “knitting socks” month, sort of like my own little march madness (whoa debbie, down there; don’t you even say anything). i feel a need to knit and store some more, and to hand david a couple of new pair as well.

these tweed sox are done and i love them. and i started a couple more pair:


one is that “andes mints” yarn i spun last week and the other is some old green mountain spinnery yarn.

i was hoping that this would inpsire him to stop patching his old wornout ones. yup, he does. this is a new thing, and i cannot talk him out of it (much less fathom the logic); late at night, he sits and mends, and i sit and knit. seriously.
and, his old socks are so worn, that it sometimes takes him as long to patch them as it takes me to knit a whole new one. i kid you not.

it wouldn’t be so bad, but he patches them with—shudder—store bought (the ones he won’t wear).

the thing is, he does it out of love. love for the socks, and love for the knitter who made them (that would be me). i have been thinking up alternate recycling projects for the handknit socks, and i have a few ideas. any suggestions, please leave in the comments (hint: because they are all 100% wool hanspun, they ARE felting fodder). let’s see if we can do better by the man!

5 thoughts on “brokebottom hollow

  1. If you have a cat, you could cut off the foot, sew up the bottom, felt, add catnip, sew the top together and you now have a cat toy. Something I’ve been contemplating doing with my worn out socks.

  2. hey christy,
    oh, cats love felted stuf. we are way too allergic to have cats, but i make felted pet toys for friends and i can tell you that a cat will carry a felted toy around til it is just a thread!!

    thanks so much for visiting me

  3. Wow, those are some big holes. Trying to darn worn-out socks is a HUGE pain. And I agree that it DOES end up taking about the same time as knitting a new pair. Have you tried using reinforcing thread in the heel and toe? However, I guess that wouldn’t really help with the worn-out ball-of-the-foot area.

    I no longer make socks out of 100% wool because I got sick of darning. Now I try to only use yarn that has some nylon content — those last sooooo much longer and still feel good. But I don’t suppose you can add nylon to your handspun — or can you? I know nothing about spinning.

    Love the color of those tweed socks.

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  5. Hi 🙂

    Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Moccasin Socks solve this problem beautifully. The foot of the sock is not knit like a tube, but rather more like baby booties (sort of). When the bottom and heel has been worn beyond repair, simply rip back what is left and knit new ones. The top of the foot does not have to be reknit. Besides not having to throw away a sock that is still 80% good, the reknit is fast and much-loved socks have new life. Yay!

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