I am going to have to try my hand at multicolour socks - having only ever made single colour before, but for a long time, but my usual ploy is to add lines of purl stitches to widen the leg, gradually changing a stockinette ankle into a K4P1 rib.

I'll have to redesign to accommodate the shaping somehow.

I might start with the simpler two colour and work up to the multicolour ones.

The colour matching done by the knitwear companies is amazing - I will just have to take potluck amongst my half a ton of different yarns up in the loft. Not joking, I have many large bags of yarn stored up there.

The repair or adjustment of socks is not new - I had a pattern - so old the paper disintegrated, detailing how to make socks which were 'refootable' by knitting the top and sole of the foot separately, then sewing them down the sides and around the heel flap.

I have frequently reknitted a sock when it has been damaged, and have become quite expert at counting up rows and stitches on the still intact one so as to remake the damaged one the same - I usually manage to forget to count during the unravelling of the damaged one.

Anne the Pleater