What is a girl to do when her hand knit sock drawer is empty?? And it’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit? And her toes are cold?
Well, she has to wash her socks! I only have 4 pairs, and 3 pairs are every day pairs…one is a pair of house socks.
In a 2 bedroom, one bathroom flat, sometimes the sink is not the best place for these things…so I use a mixing bowl. I fill it with some Eucalan and warm water.
I throw in the pair of socks, one by one…first up are my Squishy Socks out of some Regia 6 ply followed by my Technicolor Socks in Pagewood Farms Denali Sock.
And my ???? socks I can’t find that I made a project page on Rav…I don’t even know what the yarn is…they were the first real pair of socks I made after my House Socks made from Jarbo Yarns Raggi.
Next up I just need to roll them out and lay flat to dry…only 24 hours between me and toasty toes!!
How do you block/wash your knits?
❤
Jenna
hardknitlife 
I know you’re not supposed to do this, and I guess I won’t be surprised if it catches up with me one day, but…I only have one pair of handknit socks. I just can’t be bothered with special laundry procedures over one pair of socks when there are mountains of other kid-produced laundry awaiting my attention.
So I put each handknit sock in its own separate lingerie bag and toss them in the machine with the regular cold-water wash.
And–stop reading if you’re on the verge of fainting already–after that they go in the dryer. I do leave them in the lingerie bags for drying, so they’re not exposed to all the other zippers and Velcro and what have you tossing around the rest of the load. And I do take my socks out about midway through the cycle, while they’re still damp, and poke them into shape and let them finish air-drying on a rack.
The yarn is only 20% wool and the rest nylon, so I figure that gives me some leeway. So far (fingers crossed), the socks have met no ill.
But I realize this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be done, and that if I’d made them with any finer yarn, I’d likely have some matted, felted, or tiny socks on my hands by now. I don’t think I’d dare to do this with really good quality yarn. (But then, for precisely that reason, I’m not likely to buy really good quality yarn for use in socks. Sweater or scarf, yes, but I know the limits of my laundry patience. It doesn’t extend to socks.)
Sorry this got so long. Apparently I was feeling a need to confess!
I wash all my hand knit socks -separated by color – on my washing machines handwash cycle using Woolite then lay them out to dry on one of those indoor drying racks. Have had no problems with this method.
I hand wash most things, but have a hand knit cycle on my front load. I use it on things that aren’t so delicate. But I always use the spin cycle to get the excess moisture out before blocking.
I toss mine into a lingerie bag and run them with my clothes on cold in the machine. But I do dry them laid flat.