What is goin on

That is not a typo in the heading! I have other things to share besides darning this week but it's always best if we open with a knit, even if it's a knit with an inexplicable hole in it:

And just in case you were wondering, yes. This is the exact sock I darned last week. I totally missed that this bit needed doing.

In related news (by which I mean, news related to this picture) Pete scored not one but two varieties of lemon thyme for me this spring! plus some very healthy rosemary and a boisterous basil, none of which we have yet planted. 

 

It's been a busy week for me. There was a lot of organizing around a dishwasher leak at our condo, bad enough to have me looking up flooring and on-site contractors to install same, and there were more Tiny Home developments, mainly to do with it being nearly ready and the permit to install it on site, not. 

I wrote up my thoughts on the awesomeness of Daphne du Maurier's writing, because my current crime novel is a finalist for this year's Daphne du Maurier award in the unpublished mainstream category, and the organizers were organizing fun copy to celebrate the impressive 25th anniversary of this contest.

I thought about Instagram and whether or not I should give it a go. 

I gave my new pale pink running shoes a lot of road time - walking pace only, though I am sorely tempted to pick up running again - and I went to the dentist because c'mon guys, you know I know how to have a good time. 

I also had two requests for the Strawberry Sundae hat I designed lo these many years ago for Biscotte Yarns. I'm not sure now why I don't have that pattern available. I think I must not have written it up to share here because it went into a pattern book there. Either way, it's nice to know people still want to knit it even if finding that out is a prelude to disappointing them.

Okay, back to the darning problem, a subject which is completely beneath Ricardo, our resident rooster.

Of course I fixed the hole.

It looked just as shabby and botched as last time, but unlike last time, when I turned it inside out it was neither subtle nor sufficient.

Those big loose threads look guaranteed to wear down fast, so I had to get back in there and try again. 

Better now, right? Ugly on both sides, but all stopped up!

I was still admiring my entirely amateurish handiwork when I noticed something else.

It's not a hole. But it's going to be a hole. So I mended that too.

And now I am done with darning, at least for today.

Hope you had a fun week! Enjoy your weekend and I'll see you next Saturday.

Darned if I do

I was too lazy to go upstairs for socks when my feet got cold watching WWII documentaries yesterday (do I know how to spend a Friday night, or what) so I grabbed a pair from the very small Just Darned pile nearby and saw this:

a big hole on the right, in the red stripe

Seriously, this was a sock I had already patched up. I really hope I do not have to blame moths, because the rest of the to-do darning is in a giant yellow Pyrex mixing bowl, and I can't help but feel moths would see that as an invitation to dinner.

Anyway, I decided to make lemonade and bring you along for some darning in a sunny patch on the back deck for today's Hug. 

(I didn't literally make lemonade. I made tea in fact, and then forgot it on the counter until it was very cold and murky looking. I will make another round after I finish telling you all about my darning adventure.)

First step: find red yarn. I didn't have any in my bowl full of darning yarn, which thankfully appears to be unattractive to moths, so I raided some from a ball I'd been saving for stripey fingerless mitts:

Note the protective plastic bag in which this yarn is stored. No moths here, baby.

Next up: gathering tools and heading outside.

See how healthy and bunchy our boxwood looks? This time last year it was nearly dead from a very much non-native caterpillar infestation. I spent about a week picking off tiny caterpillars and dramatically pruning away branches, and then had to do it all again later in the summer when the next round hatched, but boy was it worth it. 

And now, back to the task at hand.

I like to make a sneaky sideways approach to a hole in a sock, so as not to startle the hole into getting bigger, and also to ensure the starting end doesn't pull out of the sock and make everything open up again once I'm done. 

Lots of back and forth.

And crissing and crossing. 'Dog's Breakfast' is a term that springs to mind. At this point I was thinking, the other side is going to look beyond awful, and also, I don't care. But you know what? When I finished and flipped the sock right side out again, it took me a minute to figure out where the hole was.

Let's try again.

Nope. 

I mean, it's there. You can probably see it. But it's not obvious, is it. I even took another picture inside, away from glare, and it's still pretty subtle.

You'd think this successful surgery on a much-loved sock would motivate me to spend the rest of the day darning socks, wouldn't you? Or maybe you wouldn't... I mean, you can see yourself it is very sunshiney and nice outside. And I do have snaily tendencies when it comes to this sort of thing. Best intentions, worst follow through.

Not like a real snail, such as the one I saw on a walk with a friend this week:

I mean that snail is GOIN for it. Those eyes are as far out as they can be, like they're willing the rest of that body to catch up, and talk about tire marks as it speeds out of the grass to get to wherever it's headed.

Where I'm headed, on my way to do more darning or just to read a book before supper: the kettle! I really do want that tea. I hope you a have a wonderful weekend - see you here next Saturday, okay?

The darning begins

One nice thing about writing regular Hugs again is that I've been looking over the ones from years ago when our house was still small and I had no time to write fiction. I was so creative! Somehow I was posting five times a week about fresh things I'd made or was making. Now, I'm lucky to get an hour of knitting one day in seven. I'd forgotten how much I love sitting with yarn. So I decided to set out a project in plain view, to encourage me to pick it up. And because my cup was runnething over (seriously, socks spilling off the shelf by my favourite chair), I picked The Darning. 

It's a sad task but this display looks kind of cute, I think. I added in another few skeins of sock yarn to wind into cakes, too, because my supply of sock kits is getting low. Backdrop! Isn't it lucky I couldn't let go of all those little yarn ends all these years? They are the perfect length for patching holes.

But that photo only shows half of the problem. There was a second vintage Pyrex mixing bowl in the offing.

Because any dye is going to fade inside boots that are actively walking, it's not possible to perfectly match colours with unused yarn, but you can make a start. And when I made my start, what a hash it was. 

This heel looks like a roiling cauldron. To be fair, I was resolving a pretty substantial hole. If only that could justify that random line of brown running through perfectly healthy knit stitches. Oh well, nobody will see it except you guys. And eventually it will felt into place and seem intentional.

I did better with a later pair. Its heel was still intact, but thinning dangerously.

Hmmm. Okay, maybe this one doesn't look so great either, from the inside. But from the outside, you can hardly tell it's been darned. 

Darning socks is basically weaving, another task I enjoyed very much back when I was taking my loom out on the regular. But it's not something you want to do while watching anything too riveting, or stress-inducing if you're the sort whose palms sweat at the sight of heights (holding up a sweaty hand here.) Too easy for the needle to slip. I need to get myself organized again with audiobooks. I'm going to run out of movies I've seen six times before (not.)

I did the first few socks with my usual blunt point darning needle and it was not exactly blissful - just better than the sharp-tipped one that splits the yarn. Then I remembered I bought darning needles on my long-ago trip to Germany and it turns out they are baby bear needles - just right. That's probably why the blue heel came out so much better.

Sometimes, you just need the right tools.

So, here we are at the end of the week, and it seems my plan worked. I've repaired many socks. There's only one pair left in the Stripey Vesper bowl, yay!

With the Stoddart wool/mohair socks to follow, ahem.

I hope you've had a lovely week and that you get some crafty time in this weekend. See you next Saturday!