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**Nyssa** · March 9th 14, 03:19 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.needlework

wrote:

On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 15:45:38 -0800 (PST), Monica Ferris
wrote:

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!"

I didn't learn to darn this way - I was taught with a
decorative wooden mushroom - you used a 'darning' needle
(so called because the eye was generous enough to
accomodate threading wool through it) and you first made
lines of yarn back and forth one way across the hole.

Then turn the mushroom and weave, over and under those
threads. The part where you had to be careful was in
leaving a small loop at the
end of each run to allow for shrinkage. Wool generally
did shrink a little when it was first washed in those
days.

I can see the artistry in darning as you describe but
'back in the day' there were too many socks to darn (my
grandmother kept a basket beside her chair, socks to knit
for soldiers and family socks for darning) the practical
outweighed the artistic lol

Yep, this is the way I remember it too. You basically
wove "fabric" with the yarn over the hole. I always
had trouble maintaining tension and not pulling the
yarn too tight making it all bunch up instead of
lying smooth. It just takes patience and practice.

You *could* get rather artistic about it though if you
used a contrasting yarn or a couple of different
yarn colors, one for the base set of lines across,
then another for the weaving lines.

Another way was to do as Goddy described, only having
planned it in advance by the way you knitted the
original sock: do the heel and toes in a contrasting
color that made it easier to rip out the old "bad"
sections and re-knit it with more yarn.

I also wouldn't use double 0 needles on the patch unless
they were the same size as I had used originally. I'd
use the same size needle and same size yarn as I had
for the sock in the first place.

One last note, that double pointed needles that small
often come in packs of five instead of four, meant
for sock knitting. It all depends on the manufacturer,
but most European brands would come in fives.

Can't wait to read the new one, Mary Monica.

Nyssa, who has a wooden darning egg with handle around
here somewhere