Dance With the Dolly With The Hole In Her Sock
See that holey sock? It's mine. Or at least it was mine. Half of a pair of my favorites. Well, boo-hoo ... I no longer have a red-and-blue striped pair of socks because of that hole. It's too big to fix, so I'm going to toss it and its mate. But for the future, I'm asking for advice on avoiding holes in the heels of my socks.
One suggestion I received was to switch to smaller needles when I do the heels.
Another was:
Right side - slip the first stitch as if to purl, with the yarn in back, then knit 1, slip 1 across the row;
Wrong side - slip first stitch as if to purl, but with yarn in front, and then purl across row.
I'm actually thinking of combining those two methods. Switch to smaller needles and follow the right side/wrong side pattern.
You know what's coming next. What are your suggestions for keeping the heels of your socks hole-free?
Labels: heels and holes in socks, knitting, socks
posted by Fran Baker at 11:37 AM
5 Comments:
Fran - do an 'after-thought' heel as suggested in the Twisted Sisters sock book. Then you can replace worn out heels and still have your favourite socks to wear again.
Fran, a couple of things:
1. Definitely do the (I think) Eye of Partridge heel flap as you described. I use it for every pair of socks I make and have never had any wear there. It makes an incredibly attractive, cushy, hard-wearing flap that I think you'll love.
2. Email me your snail mail addy and I'll send you some of my reinforcing thread for socks. (Assuming I can find it in this post-apocalyptic deadline-addled household.)
3. Those socks are wonderful! What about cutting out the heels on both, unravelling until you get to a logical starting point, slipping the stitches onto your needles, and reknitting the heel(s)? Like Kozmic's after-thought but without the fore-thought!
Where does one get reinforcing thread for socks? I see it referred to in directions but have no clue. Also, a link/reference to the afterthought heel would be welcome also.
I tend to start darning when the holes are small -- the result being socks with multiple darns until I can't stand it anymore and toss them.
Knitting with size 1 needles and doing the heel with slipped stitches does seem to help, though.
I second the suggestion for unravelling and reknitting the heel. Reinforcing with woolly nylon (sold on little cones for use on sergers -- check fabric stores) could help. Just hold the woolly nylon strand with your sock yarn strand.
The heel stitch you described is fairly standard for a heel flap. Eye of partridge is done a little differently -- the knit and slipped stitches are offset on each right side row. Further explanation in a recent entry in my blog: http://ozarkknitting.blogspot.com
And a quick Google search for "afterthought heel" yielded this site:
http://www.keyboardbiologist.net/knitblog/archives/000336.html
(http://tinyurl.com/2e64xe
-- in case the long one has run off into space & is unreadable).
Thanks for the links, Julie - and the info on the nylon thread. I'll look for it.
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