Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Camouflage Socks

Socks are the perfect portable project, minus the heels and toes, for those you have to be at home. I always have a pair on the needles. I also have enough sock yarn to knit a pair a month for the next N years...but lets not go there...

Way back then, a long time ago, when I first learned to turn heels and toes, in my first ever visit to the Black Sheep shop in SLC, I found a couple of skeins of camouflage sock yarn, from Lorna's lace. I remember the yarn cost a lot of money, it was more expensive than any other sock yarn I had ever seen. But I had to have it. I knit the socks and wore them until the toes wore out! It was probably my third pair of hand knit socks ever.

Toes and heels wear out, of course that happens, it has happened to many pairs since then, and will continue, no way out of that one. I usually throw them out because by then the rest of the socks are not even worth re-knitting the damaged parts. This pair however was special, too special to me. I had the two little balls of left over yarn and the old torn socks in a sack. I could not get myself to throw them out....I looked all over for similar yarn, no luck, they just don't dye the color!

Then one day it hit me! what if! I unravel the socks, condition the yarn, get rid of the areas that are not worth saving and re-knit the socks using the new yarn for the feet and the old for the legs? at least I can wear them around the house ...thought me.

I set to the task, skeined and washed the yarn, added a tid bit of olive oil to the rinse water. The resulting yarn was almost perfect, even the pills fell off! a bit lighter in color than the unused balls, but who was going to know?

....and here my friends are my new camo socks that will probably last a good number of years, I have almost given up on finding similar yarn, I might as well enjoy these, can you even tell where the old and the new yarn came together?

Camo socks

Camo Socks

now it seems the picture is a bit dark, will have to fix that.

On other great news for your spinning wheels, we have now available to us carnauba wax in a blend that contains no toxins and is perfect to condition the leather bearings, look here! Etsy Shop with Carnauba Wax

2 comments:

fleegle said...

You have more patience than I do, that's for sure!

Cheryl S. said...

Great job reclaiming your socks! Hope you have many more years of wear out of them. (Maybe after you wear out the toes again, you can just make ankle socks with the remaining yarn?)