Why do darning – a throw back

Mai Quynh on 17. July 2023

I continue with my very loose series called „My darning life“ (working title). I started with the post Darning, (my) a starting point. Today it’s some background stuff and a throw back.

A timeline: How did it start?

In fact, I wrote about the reasons in previous posts, long before I knew I was going to write this series. The first post on the blog about darning was About the sock siblings and darning and kind of prosaic (…at least I tried). It starts with beloved socks of mine having a hole at the heel and me being sad. From here on I quote from the post (english translation):

One day, the owner [me] was in a sewing café and heard for the first time about an activity called „stopfen" (eng: darning). They said it was a way to close holes. But not by pulling the edges together and sewing them. No – new fabric will be created at the spot where once there was a hole. The owner was confused and could not imagine such an activity. Creating new fabric where there is nothing?

How the story continued is no longer known. What is known is that the owner followed an Instagram account that focused on repairing and preserving garments and that’s how she learned about the word „mending“. The possibilities fascinated her.

And at some point, the sock pair owner understood: the technique she saw on the Instagram account was called "stopfen" in German.

But:

  • How does the technique of darning work at all?
  • What materials do I need?
  • Who can explain me how to darn?

While there are plenty video tutorials for other handicrafts like knitting or crocheting, it was not so easy for darning. I hardly found any video tutorials at that time (who knows what keywords I used to search; I probably only used the German keyword which was not so fruitful) and if I did, they were not satisfactory. Not much showed up in my trusted search engine either. In the end I found books on the subject and then ordered one: Modern Mending by Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald [1]. Even though I mainly just flipped through it since then and don’t work with it that much (because I only use two techniques anyway), it was an anchor for me. Being led by someone who has been working on the subject for a long time and has a clue.

With this little smorgasbord of information, I darned the first socks. And then I continued. When I’m darning, I get into a really strong pull and want to move forward. I’ve never experienced that with any other handicraft. In contrast, sometimes several months lie between two darning pieces.

Fascination about this fiddly work?

And now please answer the question: What does fascinate me so much about this fiddly work (which it is)??

This question is answered by the following quote from my other blogpost Back! with a repaired piece of work

Repairing culture is something I’m really fascinated by, in every way and I also think that repairing is healing. Not only for the piece to be repaired but also for myself. It’s like this feeling when you create something with your own hands and feet.

But on top, there’s this feeling of taking away the pain because you cared about the spot that has hurt.

And that is how the topic self-efficacy comes into play again. Often, it’s not even beloved clothes of mine that get darned/repaired. It’s honestly this fact of being able to repair something and make it usable again that makes me feel great. To learn a skill and then actually use it. The most impressive thing is to vizualise this skill by taking before/after photos. This is also tip 3 from the book mentioned above. The issue of sustainability also plays a role because I don’t think it would be okay for me to dispose a garment because of a hole without having tried to find a solution. And these two points lead more or less to the reason why I’m blogging about this - not only for me but also for you: sharing is caring. Sharing of: Feeling of self-efficacy; and also the knowledge to repair broken clothes.

 

And what happened next?

Thanks to Instagram’s algorithm, it was enough to find one account on that topic. After that, a whole world opened up to me like magic and many posts and corresponding accounts showed up. Other media forms also discuss this topic but not nearly as well as Instagram does as a photo platform in my opinion; in this respect, Instagram is currently my favourite medium on this topic.

Finally (I won’t end the post without) two Instagram accounts as a recommendation to start with:

If you’re interested in more content, just click yourself through their Instagram 🙂

And the book I mentioned:

[1] „Modern Mending“ by Erin Lewis-Fitgerald, available in Australian and UK/US editions.

June 2023 | study logbook. Being a scanner

Mai Quynh on 2. July 2023

I was recently reminded by the blog post „Wie erstelle ich einen Handarbeitsblog?" (DeepL translated: how to create a handicraft blog) from the german blog verdrehtemasche.de that I also wanted to share my insights from failures – lessons learned so to speak. To do that, I need a bit more space for words and text, so I’m splitting the monthly review for June to have a try. And then I will see if/how that works. Today’s review will cover the more general / the „Being a scanner“ part; the „Something with photo“ will come separately.

Concert, workshop on how to read out loud, adult education courses

I was at a concert and it was a seated one- which ended up being fine for the artist and his music as the songs were played to piano music and a surprising string quartet (oh, so nice!). But for the previous supporting/opening band it didn’t fit at all as it was very (!) danceable music and just swaying your shoulders isn’t even half the fun. I can imagine that it’s a bit sad for the supporting band when people can’t/won’t dance along at all.

Quite spontaneously I took part in a workshop with the topic „Lust an Büchern wecken" (DeepL translated: „Awakening desire for books“) – it was about how to make books palatable to small children (nursery age). It was very interesting and I learned a lot! Let’s see how and when I can apply it.

My adult education classes came to an end and I have to look elsewhere to bridge the summer break. One course was a language class and I want to keep up the language skills at least into this year’s autumn (planned travel). The second course was a bit of exercise to counteract all the sitting. My weaker self is very strong but sitting a lot remains and I should overcome it. Hopefully I will be motivated to do something in July :‘)

Elderberry syrup

The elderberry syrup which I have set up in May- is ready! The recipe (german) according which I prepared the syrup is this one . Sterilising the bottles was a bit tinkery but making the syrup itself is quite easy. It’s quite good and I like Elderberry syrup most as a spritzer. I offered the syrup also to my colleagues and I think they liked it as well and they enjoy it on the one or other hot summer day. I still remember my colleague’s comment when he smelled the glass for the first time: „It smells like summer“ – isn’t that a wonderful comment?

Darning

At the beginning of the month I did a „darning workshop“ with someone who was interested in darning. Her socks had holes and so we sat down together. She sat down with her socks and I did with my equipment (darning yarn, needles, darning egg) and then I explained the darning technique to her. I used one of my own socks to darn and eventually it made it back to life: Abby. Abby had two small holes but since they were so close to each other, I darned them in one go.

It had been a while since I had used the weave darning method and I didn’t know exactly how to anchor the thread at the end. Abby was darned in two colours, classic black and white, thus the darning looks like a chessboard. The second sock, Ally, continues to be holey since I didn’t find the motivation to work on her after the „workshop“ evening haha.

Showing/teaching someone else is always a small challenge. But it worked out and the „workshop“ was successful, eventually she was able to bring three socks back to life! Half jokingly and half seriously, I wonder if I could set up something real in these regards?

Other handicrafts

At the moment there’s nothing much concerning other handicrafts. Even though I felt like crocheting more animals after I did the dino , nothing has grabbed me. And knitting - nada. I’ve often heard that knitting is more of a winter hobby, and maybe that’s just the way it is with me this year. In contrast, I’m thinking of trying embroidery again. Aren’t shirts with such small prints or embroidery on a chest trendy these days? It’s not that easy to find such things so I thought about making them myself and gifting them to interested people.

Apart from the realisation that nothing happened here, I have nothing to share. I don’t know how useful it is to write that down then.

~

In case your wondering why I’m done with my monthly review so early: Thanks to my holiday week I was able to collect my thoughts earlier this time 😀

Darning, (my) a starting point

Mai Quynh on 14. March 2023

I remember how difficult it was for me to find more information on the topic „darning“ once I decided to check it out. A lot has happened since then and in addition to the resources I found, a lot of thoughts have gathered on that topic – in the narrower and broader sense. I would like to use the blog as an opportunity and possibility to reveal these thoughts 🙂

Once, when I told someone about darning being one of my interests, he replied:

„You can fix something so there’s no bump and you can’t feel it?!“

Now that was very loosely quoted but it represents the beauty of darning in my opinion: I’m repairing a hole (hole = fabric is missing) but instead of gathering up the remaining fabric close to the hole and sewing it, new fabric is created. Whuaaaaat?!?! 😀

One person who shows you very nicely how this works is Sarah from the YouTube channel (and Instagram channel of the same name) Ein Koffer voll Wolle. I especially like her videos on the darning technique duplicate stitch. Though, I started with weave darning (that’s the literal translation of the german term, not sure if this is the english term as well) at that time and also think that this technique is more universal - that’s why I link you to her video on this darning technique right here. Just watch it (it’s 13 min) and dive in the way how a hole disappears „just like that“. Okay, it’s not just like that but it’s simple nonetheless. And it’s so fascinating!

The first post about darning shows the technique weave darning. (altes Leben = old life; neues Leben = new life)

In general, I’m more interested in showing the network/community on the topic of darning on the blog and less/not at all am I interested in creating tutorials by myself. As I mentioned, I have found a few resources in the meantime that I are highly recommendable. On the one hand, it will be about making darning and darning people (more) visible – maybe I will create a small link list eventually. On the other hand I hope that by dealing with this topic for the blog and preparing the posts, I will also expand the network for myself and immerse myself more. In between, there will be some thoughts on a meta-level (time?) and I will also get over to related topics (fixing in general).

There will be a bit more background blah blah from me in a later post. I wanted to do a short entry today. Did I succeed doing that? 😛