Mending & Making from the Stash

Lately I've been busy outside of work, attempting to work through my stashes of fabric and yarn while making repairs to pieces that have languished in my "mending" pile for far too long. My yarn stash consists mainly of random single skeins from yarn companies (from my more active days in the knitting community), leftovers from past projects, and a few quantities earmarked for dog sweaters.

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Lichen
Pattern: BFF by Cookie A
Needles: US 1 for cuff, US 0 for body
Size: 3rd size to accommodate using smaller needles than called for

The thing I stash the most, hands down, is sock yarn. In my opinion, nothing beats a hand-knit sock; in fact, I'm knitting on one every few sentences while I write this. They're portable, and the ones I knit are relatively mindless, so I'm able to knit a few rows to help me think while I'm working or to calm anxiety when I'm out of the house. If knit dense enough in the right yarn, they can last an unbelievably long time. It's just such a nice little act of self-care to take the time to make yourself something that's both incredibly luxurious and completely utilitarian at the same time.

Yarn: Madelinetosh Twist Light in Modern Fair Isle
Pattern: BFF by Cookie A
Needles: US 1
Size: 2nd size

This pair of socks I knit in January 2016 is a perfect example of their potential for longevity. Made with Madelinetosh Twist Light, they feature the BFF pattern by Cookie A—the same one from the first pair mentioned above. I absolutely love these socks and am amazed they're still holding up after all these years. While I have other socks from the same era in this yarn that I still wear regularly, those are tucked away safely in my sock drawer rather than the mending pile where these ended up.

About two years ago, these socks had an unfortunate encounter with a set of sharp beagle puppy teeth. I tossed them into my (growing) mending pile, planning to fix them when Poppy was older and less interested in destroying everything she could grab. Now that she's 3, I decided it was finally time to mend them. I took them, along with a few other projects, to the Laura & Allyson knitting retreat in early March. Since I had saved some of the original yarn, I removed the cuff — irritating work, as the socks were slightly felted — and put the sock on my needles to re-knit.

Since these socks were originally knit top-down but had to be repaired bottom-up, the stitch direction is reversed at the join, resulting in a slight jog in the stitch columns. While this would drive me crazy in a brand-new pair of socks, for a repair job it's perfectly fine – I'm just happy to get them out of the mending pile and back into my drawer.

The most amusing part of the repair is how dramatically the socks' color changed over nine years. While some dinginess in the whites is expected from machine washing (which I absolutely do), I suspect much of the discoloration came from wearing them with my black Blundstones when they were new. Yet if you'd asked me before I pulled out the replacement yarn whether the color had changed, I would have sworn they were still the same shade as when I first knit them.

Yarn (L to R): Spun Right Round in Counting Pennies and Huasco Sock in White-collared Jacobean
Pattern: None used for either
Needles: US 1 for cuff, US 0 for body

I knit the first pair of socks in this post and the pair on the left above for myself, while the pair on the right I made for my mom. Unfortunately I only photographed them pre-blocking when they looked a bit messy, but they're part of my annual tradition of knitting her Christmas socks and that sock yarn was bought and stashed with this purpose in mind. I'm now three skeins down in my stash and have removed one item from my mending pile, and it feels absolutely amazing!x