Carolyn's wool socks with worn out heel

On the mend of a pair of handmade socks

Sharing a mend from my friend Carolyn, who is wonderfully talented in all kinds of fabric arts. I love the multiple meaning layered on the one pair of cozy socks!

What’s the mend?

They’re the ‘Irish oats’ pattern from Cabin four, knit in a random wool yarn I had in my stash.

How’d you fix it Carolyn?

I mended them using a speedweve darning loom. Speedweves are fun little looms that make weaving a patch much faster and easier than using a darning egg. It used to be quite hard to find Speedweves as no one was making them anymore, but now there are a number of sellers on Etsy who make metal or even wooden mini looms for darning. 

I used a different (red) sock yarn to mend them as I’d run out of the original yarn. You start by creating a weft over the spot in need of repair and then go back and fourth with a yarn needle weaving the patch. 

One of the socks was just running bare, so I wove a patch over it to strengthen it. The other sock had a hole, so I reinforced the perimeter of the hole before weaving a patch.

Why bother mending them?

These socks were the first cable pattern where I felt like I really got the hang of how cables work so I have a real fondness for them. I used to wear them with boots which is how the heels got worn down, but now I wear them around the house. The last time I wore them out was to the hospital when my daughter Esme was born. I find a lot of strength in wearing homemade clothing and I wanted something handmade with me in the hospital, but I didn’t fit much of my homemade clothing at the time.

I mended these in the first month of Esme’s life when I wanted something to keep my hands busy while she was napping. I knit them a few years ago and have been meaning to mend them for some time! I’m glad to have them back!