Oh, where have all my hand-knit socks gone? (Long time darning...)

While I was pregnant I had to give up on wearing my hand-knit socks because my feet were either 1) too swollen to accommodate their snugness, or 2) too substantial for my shoes to accommodate both my swollen feet and the socks in them. Before long I had to give up the shoes as well (and I still, at eight months postpartum, had flip flop tan lines as proof) and what with all the baby stuff knitting, sock knitting hasn't exactly been foremost on my mind. I confess I have been mainly sporting the thin dollar store sport anklets I got as emergency winter back-ups during the pregnancy, which may have actually saved the four or so pairs of hand knit socks I have from being worn to death.

Witness the (scanned) heel of my cabled red socks.

I knit these socks while I still lived in Boston to replace my obnoxiously red factory made socks that had died an honorable and very final death via my constantly, constantly wearing them. The cabled red socks suffered from a slight miscalculation - they were too loose - but that did not deter me. Especially over other socks in the wintertime. They, too, are now experiencing a fate similar to their predecessor's.

These are my green socks, which were knit on the same principle as my purple socks . I made these out of Artyarns Supermerino back when I first discovered the yarn, and me and Jeanette were on an Artyarn sock kick for a while. I made these two pairs of socks and a pair of deep blue Cowgirl Slipper Socks (for my grandma).

I discovered something about worsted weight socks from this: they may be heavier and warmer than fingering weight socks, but they also leave the impression of the purl side on your feet after you've been wearing them all day as you trudge through the New England snow. This caused them to lose some appeal to me after a while, because that can get uncomfortable. Also, they pilled like crazy!

But anyway, I've darned them twice already, and they just can't take it, since they weren't meant for it in the first place. I still have a small leftover ball of this yarn, and I hope this doesn't squeak you out, reader, but I plan to frog these and make them into something like a hat for my baby or something. I can't waste good merino, and I never had athlete's foot or anything like that, so I think it'll be OK.

My much beloved Funky Socks are experiencing prolonged reconstruction. I only wear a size US 7 1/2 women's shoe, so I usually have some sock yarn left over after a project. I had so much yarn left over after I made them that I could have made a third sock! This finally got the best of me and I decided to make the legs of the socks taller. This, of course, involved some snipping and frogging. So now I have one whole (original) Funky Sock and one like this:

Although it's been in this state for about two years, I'm sure I'll get around to it sooner or later. Right?

Then there's my Fugly Socks. And my other pair of striped socks. Darn, darn, darning they, too, need. Which leaves me with... nothing but the factory made anklets, unfortunately, unless I want to darn all these and have them irrevocably worn out before Halloween. There simply aren't enough of them in rotation for them to last. So I am declaring a moratorium on wearing my hand knit socks until I have at least one pair for each day of the week, if not two weeks.