A Year In Thrift: Darning

A bit of make do and mend for you today. My girls have gone through the knees (& crotch) of several pairs of tights lately & as my girls rarely wear trousers they need lots of pairs of tights. Just like ladies hosiery girls tights are not cheap on a cost per wear basis. So I have been mending them using a technique called darning. Darning can be used to repair any hole in knitted fabric.

Mary Poppins darning a sock (excuse the subtitiles)

It’s very easy - the hardest thing about it is finding darning wool to do the job. After hunting high and low locally for some I looked online and found e-bay was about the only place where you can buy it. It starts from as little as 99p. You will also need a darning needle and either a darning mushroom or if you don't have one a small ball or even a sturdy drinking tumbler - anything with a curved edge - to support the hole whilst you work.

Here is how to darn. Turn you item inside out and place your curved object inside the garment under the hole. Starting about 1cm in from the hole make a line of vertical running stitches beginning 1cm below the hole and extend to 1cm above the hole. Repeat this step going up and down as in the diagram below making rows of vertical stitches as close to each other as possible. When covering the hole make one long stitch to cover the hole and then continue 1cm below and 1cm below the hole, as before.