A-ha!

Last weekend when we gathered the handknit socks for washing, we noticed that this pair (knit in Fall 2013) was decided misshapen (it hasn’t been washed yet):

Do you see where the heel actually is, compared to where it appears Boy 1’s heel sat in the sock all day? He is wearing socks that are far too small for him. Every time we tell him to take them out of rotation, he just ignores us. Here is the same sock next to a recently-knit pair – this really highlights the difference:

Since I knit these socks top-down, I decided to see if I could just rip out (or cut out) the toe and reknit them (I was inspired by S1’s sock toe makeover). With an extra 1.5” in length, these fit much better now:

That little project went so well that I started looking at the sock laundry with new eyes. I decided that these also needed some toe lengthening: These were scrappy socks I knit way back in Fall 2011, so it’s crazy that he’s still wearing them. These turned out to be much more challenging to lengthen. The yarns were more felted. I had to rip one pair back quite a bit further than the other. But, they live to serve another year!

Here are the photos from when these pairs were brand new:

These two modifications took a full week of my knitting time, but that is far faster than knitting him two pairs of socks. I call this a WIN!