I’ve been busy with my crochet street art recently (watch out for this month’s ScrapHappy) to the exclusion of almost everything else. But now all my festive creations are completed, I’m getting back to the queue of jobs at home… one of which is mending socks. After a thorough assessment of all the socks in need of repair, we decided that we were going to have to set aside a significant amount of time:
Sockiness
Mr Snail was very keen to mend his own socks, so on Sunday afternoon we lit the fire (we had a woodburner installed a few months ago, and it’s very cosy) and settled down with tea, darning mushrooms and Speedweves. Mr Snail practiced using a Speedweve and also had a go at using a traditional darning mushroom for reinforcing and mending small holes. I mainly darned by hand with a darning mushroom. We spent a couple of hours, and by the end we’d got a big pile of wearable socks, although we still had a few left to mend.
Hopefully the last couple of pairs will be finished this week, and we won’t allow the pile to get so big next time. We did all of our mending this time with left-over sock yarn, which I save for exactly this purpose, but if you don’t have any, you can use darning wool, which is strong and won’t wear through quickly. And if you don’t have a darning mushroom, an orange works well!
We were just in time for the onset of some colder weather this week – we have an ice warning from the Met Office for Thursday.
-oOo-
* I had intended that this would be a reboot of my “Mend-It Monday” series, but somehow it’s Tuesday now, so I had to come up with a different alliterative title!
The Snail of Happiness 
Quimper Hitty
/ December 6, 2022Hooray for cosy toes! I have a big mending job coming up on a much mended pair of my dad’s socks – there is almost no original yarn left so I am thinking of replacing the heel completely, wish me luck! I have darning eggs! Looking forward to your Scraphappy!
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Nikki
/ December 6, 2022Love how you turned a mending task into a group activity (with tea, yay!) Was thinking of how perfect your lovely hand-made socks would be this winter for families all over the UK (many shop-bought socks use materials I don’t like).
Please forgive my ignorance – what are ‘sock yarn’ and ‘darning wool’ made of exactly? Do they contain any polyamide or nylon – which seems to be everywhere? I understand why elastane (5% usually) is used, but some of the other materials just baffle me.
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katechiconi
/ December 6, 2022Family mending sounds really gezellig, a wonderful Dutch word that encompasses cosy, convivial, snug and homey. Ma used to use it for hot chocolate and biscuits after a cold afternoon playing in the snow, or for a hot water bottle with a fluffy cover, or putting up a batch of jam. I think it sounds perfect for woolly sock restoration with tea over a warm stove…
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arlingwoman
/ December 6, 2022It sounds like a fruitful and comfy afternoon. I darned all my socks last year and have been inspecting them periodically, but so far, so good.
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Going Batty in Wales
/ December 7, 2022I am so glad that you are enjoying your fire. My mending pile is over-large too – you are putting me to shame. Mr Snail is really getting into this textile lark! Good for him.
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cedar51
/ December 11, 2022Toasty Toes Tuesday sounds delightful. As well having companionship of another “darner” in front of a cosy fire giving you even more Toasty Toes, I suspect 🙂
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