Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Darn It!



I tore a hole in these on a teeny, tiny nail in the wood floors at my mother-in-law's house. We had a nice visit, but the whole time we were chatting, I was distractedly thinking about fixing this. They're commercial alpaca socks from our local alpaca farm, but in terms of price and warmth, they were definitely worth fixing.


It's really really a knit-in-place patch and not technically darning, but I finally gathered my needles, yarn, and courage to give it a try. I followed Kate Gilbert's great instructions on all types of sock repair and ended up with a patch that isn't pretty but is serviceable.

That practice has prepared me for my next repair. When I saw these holes I said something like "Darn it!" but not exactly that expression.


I found the holes when I picked the hat up from Youngest Son's floor, and initially attributed them to a careless twenty-year old. On further inspection I also saw damage to the duplicate stitching. Youngest Son was exonerated and moths/carpet beetles became the prime suspects. The hat has been in the freezer while I worked up the courage and patience to try and fix it. It's also prompted a thorough cleaning of Youngest Son's room, which was a scary prospect in itself. Wish me luck!

3 comments:

  1. Good luck! My husband is hard on socks, and so much so that they are thrown away-yes my hand knits. He wears the bottoms threadbare!! And yet I have my original pair of woolen socks. I just don't know what he does to them!!

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  2. It breaks my heart when I find holes in something hand knit. At the moment my favorite shawl is in need of repair. I'm paralyzed! Nice work on the sock!

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  3. I'm curious to hear how the knitted patch feels when worn. I haven't tried that darning technique. Yet!

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