This is a sock that I made from handspun (wheelspun) Corriedale yarn about two years ago. I mended the heels last spring using leftover handspun yarn, but alas, this is the predicament in which the socks and I find ourselves.

This hole just suddenly blew out one day; I missed the opportunity to shore up the stitches before the catastrophe.

The socks have sat around for a quite some time, waiting for me to decide what to do. I had thought of weaving some sort of patch, but I don’t want to have to fix these again in a few months. Instead, I think I will just make altogether new heels for these guys, this time out of sock yarn (75% wool, 25% nylon).

I don’t have any ideological aversion to mixing my lovely handspun wool with commercially spun, partly synthetic yarn. Compromise makes the socks go round.

I have been working away at a basket of leftover sock yarn for a couple of years now and this will be a good opportunity to get rid of a bit more of it.

This is Paton’s Kroy sock yarn and I don’t remember the colorway, but it has blues, greens, browns, and grays, and it should work fine for this job.

I usually make my heels when they are attached to the socks I am knitting, but why not just make a heel out of thin air? I cast on 26 stitches, the number I usually use for my heels.

I am working the first two rows even, to give myself a base from which to make the heel, and then I will begin working the decreases.

I am contemplating making a “turn a heel” post and if I do, I will surely link to it here.

For now though, that is too much. Let me sum up: I am beginning with 26 stitches and as I knit and purl back and forth, I lose one stitch at the end of every row and simultaneously make a yo at the beginning of every row.

I end up with very few worked stitches and a bunch of yo’s paired with the stitches that I have left behind.

When I get down to 8 stitches worked, I change course and begin to work one extra stitch at the end of each row by doing k3tog or p3tog. I do this until I make my way back to the original number of 26 stitches. In the meantime, I have made a little bag which is the heel.

Yes, a little post about heel-making might be a good idea. This is the point at which I will stop eating away at my working stitches and start adding them back again, one per row.

It does not have the weight of the rest of the sock to control its desire to curl in on itself, but the heel wrangling is nearly finished; I am nearly back to my full complement of stitches.

I was thinking I would leave the stitches live and just graft them to the sock, but have changed my mind. A bound-off edge seems more stable. And, I have to sew on the cast-on edge anyway, so there will be seam harmony as well as stability this way.

Is this the source of two-color socks? Funny to think that we make the heels and toes different colors for fun and fashion, while the origin of the practice is necessity.

I will make another heel for the other sock and will then get them sewed on.

I sort of wet-blocked these this morning and when they are a bit drier they can move to their new homes.

I thought I had better pin this on while the sock was on my foot. I don’t want to sew it on and then find either that there is a bubble at the heel or that the new heel is too tight.

I will just start stitching on the outside and get these two pieces put together. I will start with a basic whipstitch and see how it looks.

This will be fine.

The heel feels a bit bulky because the original heel is still hanging out in there, but the pieces will likely felt together after a wearing or two.

Yes, there is a bit of felting to do, but given the looks of the old heel, I do not think it will take long.