Inspiration
Leftover Socks
Dear Ann,
As a relatively new sock knitter, I have noticed something: a skein of sock yarn doesn’t yield up precisely one pair of socks, no more, no less. Sometimes, you need a bit more yarn. Other times, and often, you have a useable amount of yarn left over.
In my long history of knitting blankets, I’ve loved the fact that sock knitters generate a lot of leftovers. I’ve persuaded them to share them for various blanket projects, solo or group.
But a blanket is a very long-term solution to sock yarn leftovers. You have to keep track of a lot of little balls of yarn and hope that you’ll be able to access them when you’re in the mood for a sock yarn afghan project. I want to use these little nuggets of beautiful, special yarns NOW.
One solution: use the leftovers from one pair of socks to do contrasting heels and toes on the next pair of socks, as you are doing with your two-tone socks combining Lichen and Lace 80/20 Sock in Beach Glass and Linen.
This is a very elegant solution, no doubt about it. But what if you want to go scrappier? (I always want to go scrappier.)
I don’t even have a sock’s worth of leftovers yet, but I’ve found the solution: Terhi Montonen’s stripy socks.
We’ve been following Terhi, who lives in Finland, for a long time. She is one of those knitters who elevates a design by the choices she makes in knitting it, wearing it, and photographing it.
These socks are everything I love about knitting. Playful, cozy—bursting with color, yet they go with everything.
Jen Arnall-Culliford’s video tutorial on helical stripes is going to come in super handy when I try to copy the skinny stripes of Terhi’s socks.
I asked Terhi if she collects sock yarn remnants for a long time to get such beautifully curated stripes. “I guess I’m always in the mood for knitting with leftover yarn,” she said, “so sadly my leftover yarn box never gets full. Playing with odd colors that don’t really go together and using what I have is hugely inspiring.”
Terhi, you are hugely inspiring to me.
Love,
Kay
This is so inspirational. I’ve often thought of doing this to make small socks for the kids. But I’ve never been brave enough. I think I might be now!
I’d add a small advice: when using letover yars, knit two socks at the same time!
Wow stunning socks!
When using all those incredible colors, how do you prevent either a snarl of ends or a hard ridge where you work double to knit the ends in? Since spit-splicing doesn’t always work based on fiber content….
When there’s going to be an awful lot of ends I knit the current yarn with the next yarn for one stitch only. Then I just work them in afterwards around the cuff and toe where they would annoy me and leave the rest to hang. The yarns are probably going to be all slightly different weights anyway so I don’t worry about it and enjoy the randomness.
I’d love to know her secret to making socks with colors like this. They are just beautiful.
Love these socks! Over the years I have made a number of linen stitch scarves using left over sock yarn, but I will try this next.
These are so beautiful!!! Thank you!
I save all the bits and bobs from sock knitting (and I do a lot of sock knitting) and turn them into mini-skeins to knit one of the many ‘advent’ shawls available. I do, however, love the multi-stripe socks you spotlighted!
I do this. Some of my favorites are from leftovers.
Always so much left over! I make socks combining leftovers which I love. Then I made a whole big sweater: Joji Locatelli’s Boxy. Still had tons. Then I got the Loome Tool from you and went wild making pom poms which I gave away and yarn bombed twice. Finally the stash is down to a reasonable size but I swear it multiplies when I’m not looking.
It’s like a children’s story, or the Hannukah story of the oil that lasted for 8 nights. I hope you never run out of leftover sock yarn, and it seems there’s little danger of that.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I loved visiting Terhi’s IG page and seeing all of her beautiful photos and knitwear, but then Jen Arnall-Culliford’s video tutorial on helical stripes was an added bonus. I’m an avid sock knitter and cannot wait to use up some of my extra sock yarn on stripey socks that look good!
You guys are the best!
While I love the socks, I rarely have issues with leftover yarn. I decided a LONG time ago to knit all my socks from the toe up. I weigh the yarn before I start as well as the needles I will be using. When I get to 1/2 the yarn weight I stop sock one and start sock two. Works like a charm. Or, when I’ll be traveling I just wing it and don’t bind off till I have sock two done. I got sick of socks that I couldn’t wear with Berkies because one had an odd colored toe.
Like you, when I knit socks, I knit from the toe up, and a kitchen scales is part of the decor on my coffee table. However, i usually rewind one ball off of the other, weighing until I get them the same size (in grams, more accurate). I stopped knitting socks a couple of years ag, cold turkey, because after a couple hundred, it gets boring, but the same concept works for mittens.
I really love the idea of using helical knitting this way. I had some sock yarn that I knitted into a blank and then dyed it. Unfortunately, the yarn was too wet when dyed and the dyes ran together. Helical knitting made the resultant socks really beautiful. This might be a way to use up all of those balls, small and large. I think that I may have to try out knitting two at one time. I haven’t done that yet. Fun to come.
I’ve been doing the same for all the years I’ve been knitting. Sometimes I use the colors in the same order but not in the same amount in each sock to use up every bit. They are some of my favorites. I also knit what I call “sock scarves” using the same concept- and I knit a sock toe to finish each end. Elämä on hyvää!
@blueberryfields_ is another account on Insta to follow for leftover socks – I love the colorfulness of her socks!
I knit toe up 2 at a time using Magic Loop. I try to make sure my socks do NOT match. I feel if I wanted matching socks, I’d buy them. 🙂 I like the idea of combining lots of my small balls of sock leftovers. Although I’m also considering making Gwen Bortner’s skirt using the “magic ball” of sock yarn…choices!!
Terhi’s socks are so beautiful! I had been wanting to try scrappy socks for a long time and finally tried it this Spring. I love the 2 pair I made so far. After spending an eternity weaving ends on sock #1, I did some online searching and found this very helpful YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsLUpFAxudI
You could also just knit a couple of stitches with old and new yarn held together. In sock weight, I don’ think it would matter much, especially on the sole where simple wear will do its magic and marry the 2 socks forever for life.