How to darn socks

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this thing with socks. Bright and beautiful with fun cartoon characters on them, you name them and chances are I’ve had them. I particularly remember a pair of yellow Bert and Ernie socks I had as a teenager. They were a present from my best friends’, and I regarded them as my lucky socks. I must have been the only teenager around who was happy getting socks for no matter what occassion. Come to think of it, I must have been the only teenager who was so fervently darning socks!
Unfortunately, the Bert and Ernie socks have long since worn out beyond repair. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t still be spotted wearing pink Powerpuff girls socks.
Last May, during our honeymoon, my husband and I were casually strolling along Pier 39 when we stumbled upon the coolest shop ever: the Shop Market. I know, a pretty lame name, but it had the coolest socks I ever have seen. I just had to stash up! One of the pairs I got there had the muppet Animal on them.

Unfortunately, I managed to get a hole in one of them. Not too big though, so I could easily repair it. And while I was at it, I could just as well darn another pair of warm winter socks (although they’re not cool at all, but in winter time, everything’s allowed to keep those feet warm). But what better reason than this to write a post on darning socks?

What you need:

• A wool needle. Those are the ones that have a rather large eye and a blunt point.
  
• An egg-shaped something. I have a stone egg that does the job just fine. The important thing is that you have something slightly rounded to pull the sock over, to imitate the form of your foot. Mine looks like this:
  
• Darning thread. This looks as follows:
  

  Most of the time I use this, but a string of wool is just as good.

Darn it!
It’s not that hard to be honest. All you need to do is weave tight.

1. Turn the sock inside out.
2. Place the egg-shaped stone – or anything else that’s rounded – in the sock, underneath the hole.
3. Get your thread through your needle. There’s no need to tie a knot, just leave a tiny bit of string dangling when you start weaving.
4. Start at the top of the hole. If there are still some threads in the hole, weave through these, like this:
   

   In fact it’s even better to start a bit higher still, in a part that is still good.

5. Weave down, left to right, right to left, like this:
   

   Now if the cat OK’d it, you’re sure you’re safe 😉

6. When you have reached the bottom of the hole, or even a bit lower, make a quarter turn.
7. Sstart weaving in between the treads you’ve just added.
   

   Make sure that you weave tight.

8. When you’ve reached the end, cut the remaining thread off.
9. Turn the sock right-side out.

Tada! Good as new!