Forever Socks: How to Make Handknitted Socks Last

Whether they’re basic stockinette fidget knitting or exquisite stockings, you want to spend more time wearing your handmade socks than they took to knit. From choosing the yarn to caring for the finished items, here’s our best advice for knitting durable socks.

1. Skip the soft yarn.

Much of the yarn labeled as “sock yarn” is terrible for socks—at least, for socks that you hope will last. If you want bed socks or baby socks, then superwash Merino is a fine choice—it feels soft and silky, and it takes dye beautifully. But if you want socks that will last more than one or two wearings, choose one or more of these: nonsuperwash, longer stapled (such as Romney), robust (such as Dorset), or labeled just plain old “wool.” Kate Larson samples two non-Merino yarns great for socks in “A Case for No-Nylon Socks” and “Gansey Yarn: Have You Tried 5-ply?”.

If you want to pamper your feet, it’s tempting to choose soft yarn, but most people’s feet just aren’t all that sensitive to softness. Fabric that’s even underfoot and a stitch pattern that doesn’t poke your feet are much more important for sock comfort than soft yarn. If you want a Merino hug on your ankles and calves, try knitting the cuffs in a softer yarn and feet in something tougher.

(Sorry to say, this also applies to cashmere. Save it for mittens, shawls, hats, and scarves, or expect that your socks will be lovely but short-lived.)

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2. More plies, please.

When you’re reaching for a hank of yarn to start a pair of socks, take a moment to look at the yarn’s structure. In general, yarns with more plies make longer-lasting socks than yarns with fewer plies. Take a few inches of yarn (you don’t need to cut or unwind it) and untwist it between your fingers. Does it separate into two plies (strands) or more?

• If it separates into individual fibers, you have singles. They take dye beautifully and look great in the skein, but they will pill before you finish knitting and shred on your feet.
• If it separates into 2 strands (a 2-ply), that’s not ideal for socks, but you can improve the durability by adding a reinforcement (see #3) and knitting firmly (see #4).
• Yarn that separates into 3 or more strands is a good candidate for socks. Each strand makes the yarn stronger and more resistant to abrasion.

How tightly the yarn is plied makes a difference, too. Yarns with loose spinning and ply twist give in to abrasion much more easily than tightly-spun yarns.

The more plies in a yarn, the more likely it will stand up to wear in a sock. Clockwise from top right, singles (avoid), two-ply (not great), and two 4-plies with tight twist. Photo by Anne Merrow

3. Bring in reinforcement (yarns).

Many so-called sock yarns include nylon along with Merino for durability. Besides using a fiber blend in the main yarn, you can strengthen your socks by carrying along another fine yarn for vulnerable areas of the foot, such as the heel and toes. Try knitting fine wool yarn labeled as darning wool or even nylon serger thread along with your main sock yarn in the areas where your socks wear out first. You don’t need those support threads to last forever, just long enough to keep the integrity of the socks.

4. Knit tighter.

Some sock patterns call for creating a larger-size sock just by going up a needle size in the same yarn. This is a terrible idea. The socks will be so uncomfortable that you may not mind that they wear out quickly. Go down a needle size in the areas where your socks typically see wear. This method is even more flexible than adding a carry-along yarn because you can target just one area of the fabric. Does the ball of your foot wear out before the rest? Go down a needle size for just that part. (You may have to switch to double-pointed needles or two circulars to make it work, but the results will be longer-lasting socks.)

5. Watch out for abrasion.

We think about wanting socks to be gentle on our feet, but how about your feet taking it easy on your socks? Keeping your toenails trimmed and your heels mosturized will help minimize wear and tear on your socks. Check where your socks generally develop holes first, and you may see that a particular toenail needs some extra filing. And resist the temptation to go around in your stockinged feet—slippers will prevent general abrasion and snags on uneven floors.

6. Wash with care.

Expert sock knitter Ann Budd once mentioned that she didn’t wash her handknitted socks after every wearing—they wicked moisture, they smelled OK, and they lasted longer when washed less often. Laundry can be hard on clothes, especially handknitted ones. I confess that I haven’t changed how frequently I wash my socks (I can’t be bothered to track how many times they’ve been worn since the last wash), but I take certain precautions when laundering my handmade socks.

Even superwash socks can shrink in the wash! Imagine how cheated I felt the first time I pulled on a pair of socks knitted in superwash Merino and strained to pull the cuffs over my heels. They shrink less, but they can shrink anyway.

The four keys to washing handknitted socks are cool water, no-rinse wool wash, a spin or squeeze, and air drying. Socks are so small that you really don’t need to machine wash them: the basin of a sink or a small bucket holds enough water and no-rinse wool wash. Let a few pairs of socks soak in the water for a half hour or so, then squeeze (don’t wring) the water out. To speed up drying, roll them up in a dry towel and step on them to get more of the water out. Then hang them on a line or rack and take advantage of wool’s marvelous ability to dry quickly.

Yarn that’s less prone to felting, such as Down-breed wool or superwash, may be safe in a front-loading washing machine with cold water. You can hand-wash with warm or hot water as long as you handle the fabric carefully, the way you would when blocking finished knitwear.

Before one of these thinning stitches breaks, use duplicate stitch, or Swiss darning, to reinforce the fabric and give your socks an extended life. Photo by Pamela K. Schultz

7. Mend early and often.

The easiest method of mending is to duplicate-stitch over thin spots in your socks before they turn into holes. When some of the stitches begin to look thinner than their neighbors, get out your darning kit and add another layer of knitting to the fragile area. Kate Larson demonstrates Swiss darning and woven darning in her post “Visible Mending for Handknits”. (I find it hard to work duplicate stitch from left to right, so when it’s time to back the even rows, I just rotate the sock 180° and work left to right again.)

When there is still knitted fabric to use as a scaffolding, duplicate stitch is quick and comfortable. The reinforcing thread you added in #3 should stabilize the area and show you the path that your duplicate stitch should take. If you saved a few yards of the original sock yarn, you can make an invisible mend, but you can also choose a colorful yarn or a more durable one. I’ve patched some of my longest-lasting socks with three or more yarns, sometimes re-darning an old darn.

Keep an eye on where your socks tend to wear out first, and don’t delay reinforcing a weak spot. In a single wearing, a thin area can turn into a full-blown hole that’s much harder to mend. Some knitters would rather knit a whole pair of socks than mend a heel, but by spending 20 minutes with a needle and mending yarn, I can get dozens more wearing out of a beloved pair of socks. Bonus: I find tracing the stitches with a needle and yarn to be soothing and satisfying. No matter how much you love knitting socks (and I do!), keeping old pairs in rotation feels better than composting a once-beloved pair.

These socks have been mended not once, not twice, but thrice—see the different yarn colors and layers of stitches? Photo by Anne Merrow

How about you? Do you darn your socks or take them over to the wastebasket and say, “Darn!” like Stephanie Pearl McPhee? Do you choose super-soft yarns and baby your socks, or would you rather use a sturdy yarn and have socks that wear like iron?