Week 4. Darning

My absolute all time ever favorite woolly slipper socks got a hole in recently and I was loathe to throw them out (or use them for dusting or shoe-shining).

So I decided to learn how to darn and mend the hole in them. I was amazed at how quick and easy the process is and it could easily be used for other non-woolly socks too with other thinner thread.

When researching a quick ‘how-to’ darning article, many called for a wooden darning mushroom or a wooden egg. As I had neither of these, I popped one of my clean shoes into the inside out sock so that I could still get the same surface to darn over.

I found this wonderful diagram that comes from a 1940s booklet entitled, ‘How to darn holes and Tears’ and published on the beautiful sewing blog found here by Coletterie. I used this method and it seemed to fix the hole in my sock well.

So while it is great to use thread that matches the color of your sock…

….I rather like the purple tones against the gray of the sock.

A great way to save a few dollars and to help re-use the things I already own. I hope you will give it a try with some of your old socks too.