I know this isn't a knitting forum, but I'm hoping some of you can help me. My editor insisted I change the name of the next Betsy Devonshire book, which I was calling The Needle Case. After some toing and froing we came up with Darned If You Do. It's cute but now I have to add a scene where a sock gets darned. I've been looking at tutorials on the 'Net, and have written what I think is an accurate description. If you are interested, please read this and let me know if it's okay. Let me know if I'm stepping way out of line with this. If not, thank you very, very much!

Betsy went back to Crewel World to find Godwin deeply immersed in teaching a young woman to darn a hand knit sock. It looked like a sock from one of his knitting classes.

The sock, a bright orange with small black diamonds, was bulging smoothly over a small hole in the heel.

Ah, he's using a darning egg, thought Betsy. The smooth wooden implements came in various sizes and shapes - some more like a computer mouse than an egg. It was generally the truly egg-shaped that had handles on them. They slipped inside socks or the arms and even the backs of sweaters that had worn or torn a hole in themselves. It made mending them easier by freeing both hands for the work and by preventing the stitcher from stitching the front onto the back.
There's something satisfying about mending a hand made garment, she thought.. Ours is a throw-away society, it's good to push back against that once in awhile.

Godwin did not glance up. He had threaded a darning needle appropriate to the thickness of the yarn used to knit the stocking. The yarn he was threading was a bright orange to match the area where a hole had worn through.

"And now I take some of the leftover yarn from your stocking, which you wisely kept per my advice, and note I cut a length of it longer than you might think you'll need, because it's ever so easy to cut the extra off than try to pick up and continue with a new length."

"Okay," she said, nodding.

Without changing tone or looking around, Godwin said, "Hello, Betsy. Valentina called, she's going to stop by in a little while. Now, have you done duplicate stitch before?"

The young woman said, doubtfully, "I've looked at it on the Internet, and so I understand the theory of it, but I've never tried it. Is it as easy as it looks?"

"Nothing is as easy as it looks. So okay, before I start, you knitted this sock using four double ended needles, and there's a way to patch this hole using them, size double zero. Would you rather do that?"

The young woman rested her chin and cheek in the palm of her hand, while she thought, but then said, "I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. Which do you prefer?"

"Honestly? I like duplicate stitch if the place is only worn thin. If there's an actual hole, then I like darning with double zero needles."

"Fine." She turned to Betsy. "I'll take a set of double zeros, please."

"That's great, Molly." Betsy brought a packaged set of four to the desk. Molly opened the package and gave the needles to Godwin.

He took one and said, "First, find the first row below the hole that has no damage. You're looking for strong, solid stitching." He pointed the row out and began carefully working across the row, starting about half an inch to one side of the hole, lifting a single stitch and running the needle through it. He continued across the row to half an inch the other side of the hole. "See?" he said.

"Gotcha," Molly replied.

"Now, from the farthest left hand picked-up stitch, run up that column with another needle, picking up each stitch, beside the hole to a solid row above it." He did so, his fingers moving nimbly, while she watched.

"You do that so smoothly," she said.

"Lots of experience," he said. "I'm always wearing a hole in my socks, though it's usually at the toe." He leaned a little sideways and murmured, "I have such sharp toenails."

Molly giggled.

"Now, run the third needle up the right side, same as you do on the left. At this point you've got that old hole practically surrounded."

"Except at the top," Molly pointed out.

"Yes, well, we'll take care of that as we approach. So, you take your fourth needle, and a matching yarn, or some left over from the sock lesson, and you verrrry carefully pick up that first stitch on the bottom row and the first stitch on the right vertical row, and you knit the two of them together with the strand of yarn. Like so."

He deftly picked up the stitches onto the free needle and knit them into the strand of yarn. "Now, continue across that row to the other side."
In a few minutes he said, "And now we turn and purl our way back, picking up that first stitch from the vertical needles, so we're tacking it down on either side. You see? We're knitting a patch over the hole."

"Well, isn't that clever!"

"Yes, it is." Godwin purled his way back, then handed over the sock with its needles. "Here, you knit a row while I watch."

Molly set out, moving slowly as she felt her way into the knitting. "I'm not used to such tiny needles," she said. "But look, it's coming along."

She purled the next row, this time without her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, her movement quicker and smoother. "Wow," she said. "This isn't hard at all!"

"Tol'ja," said Godwin. "As you get near the top, pull the bottom needle out and thread it across the top, then knit the last row onto it."

"Yeah, yeah, that makes sense."

"So now you know you don't have to throw away a pair of socks you worked so hard making just because you blew a hole in one of them. Come back in the fall, I'm teaching a class on duplicate stitching which you can use to prevent a weak spot in a sock or sweater or hat from turning into a hole."

"All right, I will. Thanks, Goddy!"