When you make handmade things and use them, sometimes they get to a point where their usefulness is slightly less useful due to issues like lost buttons, snags, or just plain worn out.  So that was my yesterday crafting.

The “before” pile. They have really piled up!

I started with weaving in the ends on my fresh off the needles Sock Madness Round 2 socks because I wanted to wear them.  As a side note, the magenta yarn used in these is part of a test buy of Elann Intonation to see how it knits up since its always good to find some less expensive options sometimes. (it came out to $7/skein for 100g/436yards.) It seems to be a bit of a finer weight fingering and knits up fine but probably not suitable for repeated frogging based on the fuzz and splitting it seemed to have when I was working up and tinking a few stitches of my socks.  Pattern is called Checkbox Socks, and its actually the third pattern I’ve knit by this designer.

Sock Madness also serves as a fun skill building testing ground, but that also means maybe you don’t have all the best techniques down so I had a few spots on last years pairs that I gave Ben that needed a small hole fix where an afterthought heel was joined and my first intarsia in the round was coming loose.  Sock Madness does have minimum requirements so that all knitters are knitting at least a specific number of stitches (you can do more) and a 9 inch or better feet.  While I do in reality have exactly 9 inch feet, I don’t always have the best gauge, especially on rows.  In a fun knit I’d just knit less… but in Sock Madness this sometimes means I have to shorten them later… like the round 1 Blackberry socks which came out hilariously long for me.

Original finish

Can you spot where my toes actually end?

Half done, you can see how much I had to shorten them!

So at this point I’m 2/3rds the way through my pile but the last two pair are going to be a bit of a challenge.

First up, are the second pair of socks I’d ever knit (March 2014).  I wasn’t so sure if I was going to like sock knitting at this point as the first pair was plain socks and the second sock syndrome ran very strong because aside from the heel turn they were a boring snooze of a sock to knit. So I only committed a recycled yarn  and a plan to knit Two at a time to the cause and I loved them.  The pattern was Melisandre and its a freebie.

Alas not long after I started wearing them, the yarn wore through and I put them in my mending pile where I thought I’d kept the remainder of the yarn (which wasn’t very much) but in the intervening years I must have misplaced or given away.  So I ended up knitting up a patch for the hole and we will see how it goes, its on the bottom of the foot at any rate.

And now we come to the last pair… Which for me was the 2nd Competition Sock Madness pair I’d ever knit, using a yarn swap yarn (Hazel Knits) that has become one of my favorites to knit with.  I love these socks… I’ve wore them down to the very last fibers on the balls of the feet with how much I love wearing them.  It seemed too big of a shame to just give them up considering how nice they looked everywhere else.  So I tried my hand at duplicate stitch darning on one and a giant patch on the other and we will see if I can’t spare my Cable Madness from the pile of uselessness for a bit longer yet.

Sock one on the right, all size 0 needle, Sock Two starts with a size 1 needle on the leg.

Still loved a couple years later!

But nearly wore them through!

picking up stitches below the problem area

knitting a patch flap

stitched down.

The yarn used in the last patch is indeed the exact same yarn the originals were made of, its just that the wear has faded the color in the past three years.  I’m not too worried about having patched feet that don’t match.. those are just love patches in my opinion, because I do love wearing socks I’ve knit. (And based on my husband, aunt, and friends… I’m not the only one!)