You may remember the craze for Jaywalkers, at one point it seemed that every knitting blogger/podcaster on the planet were making a pair. (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/jaywalker). Ravelry tells me that I knitted my Jaywalker Socks in 2011. They were pretty:
I remember casting on the 76 stitches and thinking, this is an awful lot of stitches for someone like me with a size five foot (size 7 US/Australian), but the pattern mentioned that there was very little give in the fabric and that someone "with a high arch" (not me) might struggle to get the socks on over their heels. Little did I realise then that putting the damn things on would be a battle every single time that I wore them. Since I wear hand-knitted socks to work virtually every day, they became the last-choice-in-the-drawer socks. Still, I reckon I must have worn them once a month for the last five years, battling to put them on and take them off 60+ times, until this happened last week:
A hole just below the cuff. A hole that didn't run, even after I threw the socks in the washing machine. (I'd worn them to work that day.). A hole that, frankly, I've been expecting ever since the first day I wore these socks back in 2011. You can't blame the yarn, Supergarne Relax Sport Und Strumpfgarn, it knows how to take a beating. It put up with an awful lot of hauling and stretching over the years, as well as the usual wear and tear from walking and shoes.
I looked at the hole, today, and did something I should have done back in 2011. I gave in to the inevitable, and frogged them. I cut the toe, wriggling the thread through a few stitches
then ripped and ripped. The yarn has stood up to wear and tear beautifully. I hadn't realised just how tight the stitches were - it made quite a noise ripping out - and it's definitely more of a 3-ply now than a four. Am contemplating giving it a gentle soak in warm water before re-balling it up and knitting it into a nicer pair of socks.
Any pattern suggestions?
- Pam
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