Darn It!!

by Vickie

I have been knitting socks for about 3-5 years. Twice now I have had this happen...These socks were blogged about here. They haven't made it two years yet which is disappointing to me, but I decided that repairing them would be cheaper and teach me something. I have never darned a sock before. Since I didn't have anyone to ask when I was ready to fix the hole, I went here to check out a video to learn how to do this.

I got a nice man who is part of a working club to make me this to use for my first effort at sock darning. I was trying to describe to him what I could remember from the internet as a darning egg with some sort of a handle. This is what he produced. I was very happy with it. It worked well for my first effort.
Then I started to darn my sock. I should have watched the video before darning because in the video it said to turn the sock inside out and I remembered that after I was more than half way finished. I just kept going and figured that I could chalk it up to yet another learning experience.

I thought a Chibi would do well for darning. After making several passes and not being able to "dig" the needle into the wood to catch the yarn, I changed to a more appropriate needle.
This is the view inside out. It doesn't look very pretty but it is fixed.
I am hoping that the next sock where I wear a hole in the ball of the foot, I can do a much nicer looking job with my repair. It's always good to learn something new and then to hone that skill. I have to say, I really never wanted to learn how to darn a sock but after paying at least $16 for a ball of sock yarn, it's cheaper to repair it than it is to throw them away and start all over. I am hoping to learn how to reinforce the balls of my socks so that I don't have to do this very often. Has anyone got some better ideas how to prevent the holes in the ball of a sock? Please share!