February 3, 2010
Darning Socks
It had to happen sometime. Five years after I started knitting socks, the first ones were starting to wear thin. Two pairs of socks had developed holes, and one pair was starting to fray at the cuff. I noticed the first hole months ago.. and folded the socks into the back of the drawer to be repaired "later." But I was running low on socks. I have about 10 pairs of hand knit socks and wear them regularly in the winter. And right now, three pairs were out of commission. If I could take a couple hours to fix them, I decided it would be worth it.
These are, in order, my first, second and third pairs of knit socks ever, circa 2004-2005, pre-blog. As you can see, I was in quite a green phase. The two solid pairs are Koigu, and the striped ones are Jawoll.
I learned a couple things in this endeavor. Namely, the advantages of avoiding darning.
Sock Darning Prevention:
1. Knit socks in sock yarn that has nylon in it. for real. there's a reason its called sock yarn. Koigu is merino - very soft, but not the strongest. However, when you count that these socks have been going for 5 years, that's not too shabby.
2. Keep those extra yards of sock yarn. Then you can fix the socks in the same colors quite invisibly, unlike my very noticeable repairs.
3. Watch socks for weak areas. Its way easier to repair something that is not yet a huge gaping hole.
Read on for a step-by-step of darning..
The Jawoll socks were the easiest to repair. I had knit these toe-up, and done a tubular bind-off at the top. The cuff had always been a bit tight, and on one sock, the yarn had broken. So here it was simply a matter of undo-ing the cast-off, knitting up for an inch with new yarn, then binding off with a way bigger needle, size 6's. The rest of the sock looked good. Thank you, sock yarn with nylon.
The Koigu socks had all worn out in exactly the same place - at the bottom of the foot just before the toe. Huge gaping holes, encompassing many stitches. On both pairs, only one sock had a real hole, but the other had a weak area in the same spot. All four would need to be fixed.
I didn't do a search on how to darn socks (I tend to stay away from computers on the weekend), so I don't know if this is the conventional method, but here's what I did, in case you want to try it.
1. Repair any dropped stitches. At the top and bottom of the hole, pick up a row of stitches by threading the needle through the stitches. Include an extra 4-5 stitches to the left and right of the hole.
3. Attach new sock yarn and knit one row on the top needle. Turn and purl back.
4. Using an additional needle, skip one row and pick up a couple stitches to the left and right of the hole. Then, on the next row, knit together one stitch from the front and back needle together, at the beginning and end of the row, for each stitch picked up. This attaches the darned area to the sock. (If this blows your mind, just skip it and keep repeating step 3. )
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the swatch reaches the bottom needle. Kitchener the active stitches to the stitches on the top needle.
6. Do some duplicate stitch around the darned area, adding more lengths of yarn as needed. This accomplishes two things - strengthening the area around the hole, and smoothing out the edges of the darned patch. I tended to create a rectangular area around the darning.
7. Weave in all the ends and its done!
finished repair
inside out
For the socks with a weakened area rather than a true hole, duplicate stitch is the way to go. One of the olive green socks would have developed a full-blown hole on the next wearing, and basically came apart as I duplicate-stitched it. Duplicate stitching - easier than darning!
Phew! Good as new. ready for another 5 years.
Comments (9)
Excellent rescue! Can you feel the darned area when you're walking, though?
Posted by grumperina | February 3, 2010 12:43 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 12:43
:-) I darn my socks by using duplicate stitch, too. And I have repaired a sock with gaping holes kind of like you did except without the knitting together to make it attach all the way. I should have dome that though because I think it would have enhanced the darning a lot.
Thank you for the pictures, if someone asks me in the future how I do it I'll just send them here :-)
Posted by nicole | February 3, 2010 2:44 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 14:44
Wow. Thanks for the tips! I'm only just a beginning sock knitter, but I'll keep this in mind for a few years down the road.
Posted by Brooke | February 3, 2010 6:06 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 18:06
Huh. Neat! I wish you'd posted this a month ago!!!
Posted by Elli | February 3, 2010 6:15 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 18:15
fascinating! i don't think i've worn a hole in any of my socks yet, but i'm definitely bookmarking this - thank you!
Posted by mari | February 3, 2010 8:06 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 20:06
I've always (and by always, I mean for the two pairs I've darned) used the same yarn for darns, but I took a darning class at Sock Summit, and the instructor said to purposefully use different yarn. The reasoning was that the yarn that has the hole in it must have been weak, why use it again?
Posted by Rycrafty | February 4, 2010 2:27 AM
Posted on February 4, 2010 02:27
This is a very pretty darning job!
I've only known about a weaving sort of technique before I saw this and the unpretteness of that has kept me from darning my poor holed socks (and of course it's my favorite pairs I've made holes in!)
Thanks so much! Learning to darn is one of my new year resolutions :D
Posted by Lene | February 5, 2010 8:17 AM
Posted on February 5, 2010 08:17
I am bookmarking this post! I found a hole in one of my socks recently, but it was washer-created, not from wear. I think it'll be fairly easy to fix. Thanks for the tutorial!
Posted by elizabeth | February 5, 2010 4:20 PM
Posted on February 5, 2010 16:20
This is awesome! Thanks! I'm starting to accumulate socks with holes. I've done one or two weave-type repairs, but it's not quite the same as having some kind of knitted patch inserted.
Posted by Rainy Daisy | February 5, 2010 5:17 PM
Posted on February 5, 2010 17:17