Socks to slipper socks mashup

Date:
What I did:

Before

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The story:

  • I had patched the red cabled socks that I had knitted a few years ago once, and now they had another hole in the heel.
  • I had knitted the mostly green socks circa 2015-16, and they now also had holes.
  • I rediscovered some socks my mom had knitted circa 2004-2012, and found that (due to irresponsible storing on my part) they were partially moth eaten. I don't have photo evidence of this, but my memory tells me that they were also multi-patched and that it seemed (regrettably) like the way to go was to salvage just the intact parts and compost the rest.
hand indicating hole in heel of red cable hand knit socks

Before: The red cable socks, knit by me, patched by me, and hole also by me! (I wore them a lot.)

mostly green socks, with hand indicating hole in the heel

Before: the mostly green socks with a hole in the heel. These are cotton; I made them from yarn left over from my grandmother, with embroidery thread reinforcing the heel. I knit them mostly on the commuter rail, back when I was working in the city and commuting in M-F.

pieces of colorblocked socks and ball of gray yarn

Before: the pieces of socks that my mom had knit. These were two pairs of socks, made from leftover yarn, hence the cool color-blocking.

After

I did a combination of sewing and crocheting to make two pairs of slipper socks out of these socks and sock remnants. The sock remnants made it possible to have a more robust sole and heel. I later found that I could slip sneaker insoles (not pictured) into these to give more of a slipper sock feel. Scroll down past the picture (which you can click on for a larger version) to see the "After After" installment of the story!

Two pairs of colorful slipper socks. The soles of one pair are and the ankle heal of the other pair are clearly made of different (contrasting color and texture) origin than the base of the sock.

After: the two pairs of slipper socks, once I had finished them.

After After

After constant wearing, the red slipper socks got holey heels again. I did some extremely visible darning on these, using up small scraps of yarn. As I write, I am wearing the green slipper socks, and have been for most of the winter/spring. One of this pair now has a hole in the ball of the foot, so after I finish wearing them they'll go back into the mending pile.

heel, instep, ankle of one slipper sock, red with blue and green sole. Heel has visible multicolored darns.

After After: Here are the visible darns in the heel of one red slipper sock.