I’m learning to darn socks. I was completely inspired by Karen Barbé, who can make a patch look like artwork. While she’s got some basic how-to’s on her blog (look here and here), I of course have to experiment a little bit as I figure out what does what and what works best where and what takes what time. Here’s my playing so far:

Oh, and why bother darning socks?

First, can you imagine how idyllic this is? In the evening inside the farmhouse, winter wind wailing outside, sits A (unfortunately not in a rocking chair by a fire) darning socks while her love reads aloud to her. Come on.

Second, we’re against the consumerism and waste of buying new things and throwing the old away when they could be fixed. We’ve set up our current life in hopes of having the time to do more fixing and less wasting.

Third, we have a bunch of great wool socks we love that are perfect except for the fact that they’ve gotten thin in the heel and toe, and we know we’d just keep wearing them anyway, perhaps just with another pair of socks along with them, for years to come until really giant holes actually developed. So going ahead and darning them back to health is a good way to go.

Fourth, we got a bunch of darning thread from K’s grandma at some point, and isn’t it always kinda exciting to use something you always thought would somehow be useful but has been sitting around unused for years?

Oh, and this little foray into needlecraft has me totally interested in embroidery and the like as well. You’d be amazed at all the beautiful things people are doing with thread these days, completely outside of the tablecloth-for-my-hope-chest realm. See some examples here.