Even though I really like to knit socks – I don’t wear my handmade socks when I workout. Instead, I buy store-bought socks which seem to last about a season, and as soon as they get a hole in them I toss them out. A few months back I decided instead of wasting money (and creating waste) I was going to try darning (mending) my socks.
Darning a sock is not that hard… all you need is yarn (I used sock weight), a needle and a darning egg – or something to stretch the sock over while you mend it.
Before I bought a darning egg I used a tennis ball or one of the dogs Kong. Both did the job, but they were not ideal. I thought I would have a hard time finding a darning egg, but I found this one on Amazon for about $10.
To mend the hole in my socks I stitched an outline around the hole in my sock, then created vertical/parallel stitches across the hole, and then ‘wove’ in the horizontal stitches.
This sock had a small hole – but I decided to darn a larger area because I felt that the smaller patch might bug me. I’m glad I did because these are my most comfortable pair of socks now – there’s so much cushion in the foot bed!
I love that I extended the life of my socks (and made them even better). Having one success, I decided to use the same technique to save a sweatshirt that I accidentally marked with a red ink pen.
I used two different colors of embroidery floss and created a hatched circle over the mark. The sweater looked a little odd with just one circle so I added a few more. Again, I think I made my sweater better (more fun) by ‘fixing’ it. What do you think?
Happy Darning!
Sewtropolis 