I was doing a massive sock washing last weekend to get my handknit socks all clean and ready to store away for the summer and I came across this pair of Monkey socks that I knit in 2011 jammed in the back of my sock drawer, looking like they need a lot of love!
You can see in the next two photos what I started with. The first and most obvious issue is pretty easy to fix: they have lost their shape just need to be re-blocked. The second issue is a bit more complicated — see all the hair and stuff on it? Well…. I thought that was cat hair so I gave it a good pass with my sweater shaver with no success, then it occurred to me: is it possible that this is mohair yarn? (What on earth would have possessed me to knit mohair socks?) So, I looked up my old project notes, and what do you know — it is a merino and alpaca blend (so I was close!).
The good news is that the socks don’t need a shaving — that’s just how the yarn is. The bad news is I still think it looks like my socks are infused with cat hair, which I don’t like. Though, obviously 9 years ago I was into this look, so maybe I could get into it again?
So we’ll just fast forward a bit through that thought process and just say that I blocked the socks and they did look much better as far as shaping, then what do you know: I spot a hole in them!
So now I’m in this weird place where this is a pretty easy fix to mend that hole, but I don’t really like the yarn and these are super old, so I just don’t know if I should bother to fix it. I suggested on facebook that I was going to throw them away and my aunt told me that I should mend the hole and donate them because surely someone could use them, but I wonder if that’s true or if the folks at Good Will will just toss them anyway, since they’ve obviously seen better days.
What do you think I should do: (1) toss them, (2) fix them and keep them, or (3) fix them and donate?
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