In this picture you can see a sock that is clearly too short. I made this pair years ago - in 2016, it's pair #55! I didn't have all that much experience yet when it came to fitting socks well. (Also, I think my feet got bigger since then. Apparently your feet get bigger as you get older, even when you generally only grow sideways and not upwards any more...)
That blue wedge my needle is pointing at should actually be where the pink wedge is:
This is how the sock should be and I gave it a really good pull to get it there.
I think this is the problem: lots of people pull their socks up really hard, which makes them appear to fit well. But while knitted fabric is stretchy it would rather not be stretched and it will go back to its natural, relaxed state as soon as it can. That is usually once you have your shoes on and start walking. The movement also helps the knitted material to take its natural state and it will result in your heels slipping down to the sole of your foot if the foot of your sock is too short.
I've started slowly going through all the socks I seem to instinctively avoid and trying them on. Why don't I wear them? Do I just not like the pattern or the colours any more or is the fit wrong?
In case it's both I ask my sister if she wants them - her feet are a little bit shorter than mine - but if they are just too short there's a fairly simple way to fix them:
I look for the first toe decrease. Can you see that slightly slanted purple stitch my darning needle is pointing at? That's the first decrease.
I take my needles and start picking up the stitches a row or two below the first decrease round. Stitches are always Vs - you have to pick up the right shank of the V in order to pick up the stitches correctly.
If you don't feel confident using your needles for that you can always use a darning needle threaded with some waste yarn; I find a slick cotton yarn works best but a length of contrasting sock yarn will do just fine.
Here I have all my stitches picked up. Take your time with this, count the stitches carefully to make sure you have them all.
I prefer DPNs (double pointed needles) for that but I'm sure you can use circulars as well. With mini circulars it might get a bit tight though, I've never tried.
Now comes the scary bit that's not actually that scary: take some scissors and cut the very tip off or snip through the grafting (depending on your method of closing your socks).
Don't panic - your stitches are all safe on the needles/the waste yarn.
Now start to unravel the toe of your sock. If it's been worn a bit there might be some snags and a bit of fluff and you might tear off a few ends or have tangles from darning (I always "overdarn" my toes and have to pull out a few double strands until I'm a few more rounds down).
Frog the toe until you reach the needles. (Slip the stitches onto needles now if you've used waste yarn to secure them.)
If you've accidentally picked up a few of the stitches too high up or too far down, don't worry! Just go slowly, sort everything out and tink (= knit backwards; undoing knitting without pulling out the needles) back until you're certain it's all even.
Here I've put the sock on, pulling the heel to where it should be, and then wiggled my foot and my toes a bit to make sure the knitting relaxes and there's no tension on it that could skew my measuring again.
The sock reaches the base of my little toe. It should reach just about the top of my little toe.
That's how much too short it was!
Use the rest of the yarn to knit up to where you would usually start the toe on a sock that fits well.
Don't worry about the yarn being crinkly and wiggly. It will relax into its new shape once you give the socks with the new toes a wash.
This is where I usually start the toe. You might start the toe at a different point on your foot. Most sock knitters have their own ways of measuring feet and they tend to know how long the toes of their socks are depending on their rhythm of decreases and how many stitches they leave for grafting.
If you have some left overs of the yarn you originally used for the socks you can use that, but it might not be possible to match the join exactly and the pattern might be off.
I like contrasting toes on my socks so I searched my stash of solid colours for shades that appear in my sock. When I do this I like to focus, if possible, on colours that don't show up in the sock a lot, (here that's the narrow stripes like the yellow, orange or pink). This doesn't make it that obvious if your contrasting colour doesn't match exactly.
If the majority of your self-patterning yarn is red, a solid toe in a different shade of red would be very visibly different. But if your self-patterning yarn has a few narrow stripes or speckles of yellow or pink in it, a slightly brighter pink or darker yellow won't be quite so crass because there's less to compare. Does that make sense?
I found a red and turquoise yarn that were pretty perfect matches; but since the last bit of sock I knitted in the stripy yarn was red, I didn't want to have a red toe. I also didn't want to use the turquoise because there is already quite a lot of it in the sock.
The mustard yellow yarn I had is a tad darker than the yellow stripes, but since the toe is a good bit away from the last yellow stripe I thought it was just fine.
Here I've knitted a few rounds of toe already. I like to start the toe-decreases on the first round of using the contrasting colour. Don't forget that you have the stripy yarn still on the needles when you change colours; you have to knit a round before starting the decreases.
The slanted stitches are the decreases. Don't worry about the re-knitted section below the new toe looking all wonky. As I've said already: the yarn will relax once it's washed and you won't notice any more.
Here's the right sock with the new toe. You can see it fits much better compared to the left one.
To make sure both socks are the same length I rely on counting the rows more than on measuring with a tape or sock ruler. For counting the rows, look for an obvious starting point, like the first plain round after the last gusset decrease (if you did a heel flap and gusset). That's the last slanted stitch, you should be able to find it. With short row heels there's usually also a point where you can clearly see the stitches looking normal again, right below that "seam line" the short rows create. With an afterthought heel it's a little more tricky but I'm sure you'll manage. It very much depends on the pattern you used. Worst case is you have to count all the way from the cuff. Or you can count pattern repeats if you have a texture pattern in your sock. I have complete faith in your abilities!
I've decided to go for a red toe on the left sock. Since the stripy yarn ended on a pink stripe and the last red section was a little further away I thought that would be fun.
I've been wearing these socks a lot since I re-did them and seeing them on my feet, odd toes and all, made me very happy and cheered me up a lot (given that we've had rather cold and gloomy weather for the season).
I did the same thing with lots of socks I made for (or gave to) my son when he outgrew them within a few months. The socks were still perfectly fine and they weren't too tight either, his feet just got too long for them. You can also do this if you can't be bothered to darn holes in the toes (or the balls of the feet) if the rest of the sock is still fine.
In case you're interested I also thought I'd give you my decrease rhythm for the toes of my socks. I know lots of patterns say to just decrease every second round but I've learned it this way from an old knitting book when I first taught myself to knit socks and I never had any issues with it. (Also, I find the decrease-every-second-round method makes the toes look rather like roof-tops and in lots of photos they don't look like they fit very well, but that's just my personal opinion.)
- [decrease 1 round - knit 3 rounds] x1
- [decrease 1 round - knit 2 rounds] x2
- [decrease 1 round - knit 1 round] x3
- decrease every round until 28, 24 or 20 stitches remain, depending on how pointy you want your toe to be; try the sock at intervals to check if it's long enough. Not every sock is the same...
I hope this is helpful to you and gives you the confidence to alter finished socks. I can see that this might be a bit more difficult if your sock has an intricate pattern. In that case I cannot really help you, I'm afraid, as I've never done that. The maximum of intricacy my socks reach are texture patterns made of knit and purl stitches and those usually have a plain knit round somewhere to pick up the stitches.
Please let me know if you find any issues with these instructions. I'm sure there are other knitters who have talked about this as well, I just wanted to share how I do things.
Lots of love! xxx