Quite by accident I have made a happy discovery concerning socks. This story began at Costco  where I found fantastically excellent socks “for women” made of Merino wool. Soft, comfortable, and machine washable – I wish I’d have bought all that they had. After they depleted their stock, it was not replenished.

Meanwhile, many of them have fallen victim to wear. I have not found adequate replacements.

A few remain and I’m happy I have them. Fortunately I did not throw out all of the old ones because I liked them so much that I was tempted to darn the heels and wring out every possible minute of use.

Then came the garage sale. My best friend was disposing of estate items for a relative and I actually bought stuff. Imagine my good fortune to discover that his feet are larger than mine. He’s a frugal man and buys quality. He also rides big motorcycles.

Sometime back in the last century, in the 1980’s in fact, he had a hankering to acquire some Walker motorcycle boots (now described on line as engineer boots). They’re made in USA and excellent quality, but he bought too small. After spending all that money, he was not going to just get rid of them so they’ve been in the closet these many decades until I bought them at the sale.

In the back of my mind there were two facts: the cowboy boots I once owned were not my style but they were so comfortable that once on the feet there had to be a darned good reason before I’d remove them. Sleep was the only thing that qualified. Even then, it was tempting to cozy up to a chair to avoid the separation. I didn’t, but it was tempting.

The other fact was that socks always migrate to the toe if there is any physical way for it to happen.

I got the boots and quickly found that the expected sock migration was still a reality I had to deal with. After the socks had sunk like a sun at dusk to gather around my toes, my leg began to chafe.

Other than that they were spectacularly well suited to everyday all day wear.

I had some knee high socks and almost went to the store to stock up on more until I tried this: I merged socks.

I took scissors and cut the old socks at the heel hole and then put the top half of the sock on like a sock, pulling it as high as possible which was just under the knee.

Cut them at the heel. Use the top as shown and use the bottom stapled to a board for a hamster organizer

Then I took one of the good socks and put it on normally, over the bottom of the mini legging version of the recycles sock.

Pull top half of glorious old sock up to your knee

When they’re the same color, it looks like one big sock. The boot does not eat the short sock and the legging part of the duo stays put. I now have excellent knee high socks that don’t migrate at all in the boot!

Put on similar colored socks overlapping the legging