Darning socks fever (2023, April and May)

There are a lot of socks coming up in this post. While editing the photos, I realized how many photos of socks - both good and bad - will be in this post. Sock content FTW 🧦

In April and May 2023, I was in darning socks fever. There was a reason that it was just socks and nothing else. I was literally obsessed with the duplicate stitch. The duplicate stitch is based on knitted stitches. And socks were pretty much the only items of clothing in my surrounding that were knitted AND worth repairing .

This darning fever took me by surprise; from a technical perspective, I wasn't prepared at all. I was visiting my parents without any darning equipment. And you must know, darning equipment hardly takes up any space (it's just a needle, yarn and a darning egg). Thus, the fact that I didn't take this minimal kit with me is proof that I wasn't planning on darning!

One day, at lunchtime I noticed that my sock was getting thin in one of the typical places, the ball of the foot. BAM! The desire to darn this spot came instantly. And so I set off in search of materials. I found a needle and thread in the sewing box. I used an empty toilet roll as a base and replacement for a darning egg. So I was equipped and started. I sat down on the stairs where the light was good and darned and darned. My parents observed me and commented on my activities in two directions: On the one hand, they made fun of me for doing this work; on the other hand, they also found it impressive that I actually made the effort.

On another day, I met up with a friend to go to the cinema. We still had some time so we went to the Augsburger Dult (*) to stroll around a bit. This was the place where I bought darning thread ‘from the trades’ for the first time - for 50 cents! That was a bit of an experience for me as I had only bought things second-hand until then. Don't ask me why this is such an event but it was one for me 😀

And then everything went quickly, one sock after another was checked and identified as a sock of worries. And it went on this way until at some point, it ran out of steam.

During that time I started darning 6 socks. In fact, until the creation of this post, I didn't even know if they were all finished. In the course of this post I found out the following: One sock was only half darned (pink with a flower pattern, sock 5), at some point I stopped darning and used it that way. But the rest was finished. But some areas got thin again 😮 I didn't darn enough of the surrounding and which would have reinforced the area on a large scale.

And now all that's left to say is: Have fun with the results 😋

(*) Augsburg is a city in southern Germany and Dult is a term in southeast Germany to describe a fair with the character of a folk festival. This is my translation of the quote by Wikipedia.

~

(Click on photo to enlarge it)

Sock 1
Sock 1

Sock 2
Sock 2
Sock 2
Sock 3
Sock 3
Sock 3

Sock 4
Sock 4
Sock 4 (+ sock which was darned at another time point)
Sock 5
Sock 5
Sock 6
Sock 6

My repair date: 3.66 pieces

In March I announced my repair date (by the way, the date was postponed several times 😆). I wanted to make things cosy for my repair date, including the documentation work. On the one hand, this meant that the atmosphere for the repair date itself should be relaxed, on the other hand, taking the photos shouldn't feel toooo much like work. Based on this, I drew up a checklist of things I could prepare so that I could concentrate on the repairs on the day of doing the repairs. Preparation included preparing something for my ears (podcast list), something for thirst (a pot of tea) and something for hunger (pretzel sticks). The clothes had already been picked out in advance, so I knew which broken parts awaited me and was all the more excited. And then, on one of the many May bank holidays, the time had come!

Yield: 3.66 pieces repaired.

Details of the yield follows now. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Piece 1: black skirt

The seam connecting the zip and the skirt came went to pieces. To prevent it from getting worse, I wanted to sew the zip back on properly. I did this with the so-called slip stitch (also called mattress stitch, ladder stitch; a great stitch because the thread "disappears" and the seam is therefore "invisible"). It went very quickly, max. 10 minutes.

Before, outside.
Before, inside.
After, outside.
After, inside.

Piece 2: dusky pink top with flower print

I had a tear in the seam on the right-hand side where the front and back are joined. 1 cm x 0.5 cm. I don't like these areas at all because the proximity to the seam always overwhelms me. I had actually already started the repair during a repair workshop at Fashion Revolution Week in April (organized by Fashion Revolution Germany / Frankfurt) and had used the weaving method.

I continued darning during my repair date. I am so happy about the colour similarity. In this case it was not darning thread I used, but embroidery thread (1 of 6 threads) and I had the thread from the repertoire of the workshop leader (Ekaterina Haak, whom I have mentioned elsewhere). The darned area is actually visible but if it's the right angle, the darned area blends in well with the garment.

Before.
WIP.
WIP (almost done).
After.
After (well hidden).

Piece 3: grey sports shorts

That was the most exciting repair of the day.

The trousers have a waistband cord but actually, there are two cords sewn into the centre in the back. The right-sided ripped somewhere in the middle. To make the trousers somehow usable again, I had used some yarn to lengthen the right-sided waistband. It looked too odd to me and ended up in the as-long-as-you-look-like-this-I-don't-wear-you pile.

For the repair, I rummaged around to see if I had anything that looked similar to the cord and found an old shoelace, half of which had been torn off as well. Ideal!

So I took off the yarn (pink) and then sewed the two loose ends of the cords (waistband cord on trousers and shoelaces) together with lots of stitches. Then I cut off the loose, frayed ends and melted them with a lighter. This left the ends clean and minimized the likelihood of it coming undone again. The join disappears into the waistband anyway + I have a two-coloured waistband cord now. Pretty cool 😀

Before.
Before, connecting point.
WIP, sewing on the new cord.
After, connecting point (working side).
After, connecting point (working side).
After, connecting point (clean side).
After.

Piece 4: black tank top

The top had three small holes on the back. To close these, I tried scotch darning for the first time. It's so much fun! You can work your way and see how the hole gets smaller and smaller.

Even though it is black yarn, you can still see the darned area quite well. This was not invisible mending. I wonder if it would have looked more invisible with the weaving method? In retrospect, I thought it would have been funnier in colour.

I only managed 2 of 3 holes that day, that's where this 0.66 comes from 😀

The third hole was darned by me in the morning a few days later. On the day of my repair date, I found one hole on the front side (this destroys all my calculation for the yield) ... this hole was darned in the meantime, too 😁

Before, back side.
Before, back side, hole 2 and 3.
WIP (hole 1 ... one hole = loads small holes ...)
After, back side.
Nachher, Rückseite, Loch 1.
After, back side, hole 2 (open) and hole 3 (darned).

As always, I am amazed about how long a repair takes compared to how long a garment is spurned because of its flaw. In the extreme case, it is 10 minutes versus X years. A bit crazy!

Will I learn from this awareness and tackle the repairs more quickly in the future?
Me: 🤷🏻‍♀️

This post is part of the series <Mein stopfendes Leben>.

Announcement: Repair date

I talk (write) a lot about darning but it's actually been quite a while since I actively reduced my repair pile. The last time was in October 2023 - this was one of three repaired pieces.

So this is my announcement that I will get this on and do some repairing again in the coming weeks!

Inspired by Selmin and her blog post Ein Repairdate – Zack, komplettes Outfit I've been planning a repair date for a long time. The idea is so charming and I've finally set myself a date and put it in my calender! So the date will be the least I will do. But I really hope that I will do some repair before and after the date as well.

It's not so much about HOW MUCH, but rather about THAT I do repair (although "more is more" applies in this case). It doesn't have to be darning but whatever my technical repertoire allows and makes the repair heart beat faster is allowed and desired - it's not called repair date for nothing höhö.

Earliest in May I will give a report. Happy repairing 🪡

This post is part of the series <Mein stopfendes Leben>.