Socks

I used to knit a lot of socks. But many of them have been in the wash too many times and have become too small and comfortable. So they’ve been lurking at the back of my sock drawer, too bad to pass on and looking for a new use.
Some were used as planting containers when I was planting up the new pond. But there are plenty left. So when thinking about what to do for my March Journal Quilt, and with the requirement to include some previously used material, I decided to explore stitching with old socks as my fabric.

The first socks I chose were a very early pair, never quite long enough, but well worn and quite felted, which meant that when I cut into them they didn’t instantly unravel.
The first photo shows one way of cutting into the sock to get a flat(ish) fabric. I cut the other one differently, yielding different flat shapes. I always marvel when I am knitting stocks at the magic that happens when a heel is turned. When I cut it up it was rather like when you flatten a cardboard box by unfolding, to find it is one complex piece, clever design in both cases.

So what to do with this fabric. I started with a small piece from the second cut. This is the back of the ankle, with the wedge shape showing the heel shaping.
As I was thinking of journal quilts I layered up a piece with some batting and blue fabric cut from an old sheet and stitched. I found that the ‘finer’ embroidery stitches just sank into the fabric, but the satin stitches on my machine showed up nicely.

What next? Following the log cabin theme from last month, I took a second pair of socks to give me a second colour. These were not so well worn or felted, which had consequences…

As these socks were also striped (many sock yarns are cleverly dyed to give stripes when knitted up), I decided to explore the effect of stripes running along the strips and across the strips. I layered up as before and butted the edges, using a faggot stitch to fix the two edges to the base. The faggot stitch on the back made a satisfying pattern.

You can see that some of the ‘logs’ (more so from the second sock) have become somewhat distorted during stitching using the even-feed foot. Journal Quilts are intended as a learning experience, and so I have kept these flaws in to remind me to include some light interfacing next time.