Heels and Toes

About 4 years ago I made some pirate socks for myself. They have lasted pretty well, but just before xmas I had my walking boots on one day and when I got home i found a huge hole in both heels and in one of the toes!!!

So these poor forlorn socks have sat on my desk for 3 months waiting to be fixed.

The other night I got around to mending them ..

I pushed a tissue in here so you can see the size of the gigantic hole.

I used a contrast thread and large needle to pick up the stitches around the hole..

next I cut out the whole heel..

then picked up the heel flap stitches. In my case I needed to pick up 32.. I worked 28 rows of stocking stitch and then worked the heel turning. There are no special instructions for this bit, just follow your original pattern. 

After the heel turning I had 16 sts on my needle. I then picked up the stitches that were still on the cream thread, these stitches go around the foot. I found I had 46 stitches. 

You need to make both halves equal, so as there are 46 st on the red area I needed to make sure I had 46 stitches in the black area. 

I already had 16 on the needle, so I needed another 30, this meant picking up 15 sts down each side of the heel flap.

Now you can see I have 46 sts in black and 46 st in red..

Then I folded the black area over to meet the red...the reason I have the black on 3 needles and not just one is that it is simply easier to work that way..

Starting from the right side, I grafted the 2 edges together, using Kitchener stitch. I worked across one black needle plus corresponding red stitches, then tightened the grafting...

then I worked across the middle black stitches and corresponding red stitches...tightened the grafting..

then finally across the left black needles and the remaining red stitches, tightening up the grafting at the end, and weaving in the end. 

you should only have 2 ends to weave in.

1. where you joined on the black to start knitting the heel

2. at the end of the grafting row

There is no need to cut the yarn at any of the stages in between.

I then pulled out one of the toes, and knit it back up using the original pattern, and here they are all fixed and ready to wear. hopefully they will last another 3 winters. 

hope that helps you if you find holes in your socks..