The white polka dot shirt and the dot no one wanted | study logbook darning

The last piece I wanted to fix before the big trip in 2023 was a white polka dot t-shirt. The first piece was the patterned blouse and the almost-chameleon and the second piece was the white-and-red striped long sleeve and shades of white.

One dot that doesn't belong there: A hole

A hole had formed under one of the armpits. As always, the best place to be: right at the seam, or in this case even at several seams. The hole wanted to be where four seams met. After the second piece which was darned very relaxed, this flaw was more of the type ‘well, you can do it that way but you don't have to’.

before

It should be an invisible repair as good as possible. In hindsight, the third piece combined the difficulties of the first two pieces: Working along a seam and finding the right shade of white. Once again, I decided to use the weave darning method and regarding the shade of white, I chose the one that came closest to the white of the shirt and started. In the end, this repair was also easy to do. I made sure that I anchored my threads properly at the seams, but that was not all that bad.

after

And even though you can see the darned area very clearly in the photo, I hardly notice it when I'm wearing the shirt. And that's not because one just don't see it that often (I rarely walk around with my arm constantly stretched upwards). I have the feeling that the colour has somehow evened out with the subsequent wash cycle.

Didn't hurt at all! 3/3 items of clothing are ready to be dressed.

I may have used the end of the year tactically to post the last two items of clothing. In case you're still looking for New Year's resolutions, I've got an idea! 😀

White-and-red striped long sleeve and shades of white | study logbook darning

At the beginning of this year, I showed you my patterned blouse and the almost-chameleon . It was one of three items of clothing that was picked up from the repair pile shortly before a trip in 2023. I hoped that the flaw would be gone in time for departure.

After the first item was shown, there was silence around this trio. I was motivated by a comment in which someone was very happy that I was darning, leading to my decision that the other two items should also be shown this year. By doing so, I'll conclude this series. Today's piece wasn't actually darned but that doesn't matter.

Our star: Striped long sleeve and the question regarding the right white tone

Today it's all about the second item of clothing that was repaired: a white-and-red (or red-and-white?) striped long-sleeved shirt. The first time you look at it, you might be searching a little for the flaw because the stain is quite light-coloured and well hidden. But there it is! There's a brownish stain on one of the white stripes.

Before (stain: 6th white stripe from bottom, quite in the middle)

I wanted to cover this stain, doing invisible mendingso to speak, by embroidering over it with a white thread. The method I chose was my favourite darning method: the duplicate stitch. The knit stitches were perfect for this.

While the method was found quickly, it was not so much the case with the colour selection of the yarn: Which white fits better? In the end, the shade of white didn't match anyway, so there was no way I could choose the correct one. But it wasn't that bad and most of the time I haven't and still don't notice that the colour doesn't match 100%. I decided for the cooler white tone, then I started and enjoyed my time working on the stitches. Needle in here, out there, then up, in again and out there. It went on like this and just like that, the repair was done, 2/3.

Colour selection - left or right?
After (GIF)
After: close up

In my post Darning - Some technical aspects I explain the terms "invisible mending" and "duplicate stitch" a bit. Get to the last item of clothing that was repaired: The white polka dot shirt and the dot no one wanted.

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