Saturday, August 19, 2006

Lazy... but still knitting...

My Dad wore through the soles and toes of his merino fluted banister socks - despite the fact that I carried wooly nylon along... I think this is the second time I repaired them but last time was just the heel.

I didn't take any pictures, of course, but what I did was pretty elaborate. I first tried to just darn the hole but it wasn't working. So I...
- cut off the sock just at the end of the gusset and at the end of the leg (with scissors, of course)
- raveled back to have an even row, knitted back so that the measurement down the leg and down the foot was the same as what it was before
- joined the leg with the foot by doing a three needle bind off of the center 1/3 of the stitches
- did an afterthought heel (following Knitting Without Tears instructions) -- which is actually a toe
- measured again, and realized how long the foot was (oops), cut off and unraveled and made a new toe

I did the same thing for the second one, because it was worn through at the toe. I made them just a smidge longer so that he is less likely to wear through them again.

I then got some "dimensional" paint from the hobby store, and painted treads on the bottom.

Hopefully they'll be safer and last longer this way. Of course, the new heel will be much easier to replace -- when I need to!

This re-knitting bit was much better than darning. Less painstaking and more tricky to figure out. My cup of tea.