sock darn with some contrasting thread

Most of the time when you darn a sock heel, it's because a big patch of the heel got worn down over time. In our case, it's usually bc we have this one flooring nail that works its way up about once a month & snags a sock.

So we get a lot of socks with little holes, but hey, they don't take very long to fix.

1st sweater: forgot to take before pics of most of it, but here's after. These are meant to be invisible mends, so there's not much to see. 🤷‍♀️

The point of the V on the neckline was threadbare & fraying apart. Laid down stitches below it to make a solid foundation, then rounded up the loose parts & sewed/wove them back down into a coherent neckline.

A couple inches down & a bit to the left, you can see the mended-over hole looks a dime-sized area a bit thicker than surrounding fabric.

The hole fix here was a standard darn-over-a-hole situation

the neckline was like....no technique, only calvinball

Finally remembered to start taking before pics. Here's one for the 3rd hole on this grey sweater.

I'm trying to keep the mends non-noticeable. Besides matching the thread color, you want to make sure you don't pull the stitches too tight & pucker the fabric. I like to do this by tacking the area around the hole down onto a sewing ham. Keeps it still! Very important with floppy stretchy knit fabrics.

First step in a standard darn job is make back-and-forth stitches across the hole.

Darning = weaving new fabric over the hole with needle & thread, rather than trying to pull the hole closed. So this 1st step is basically setting up the warp threads.

If you nail it just right, the rows of knit fabric on either side of the hole should be lined up in parallel.

@sarahtaber

Last winter I went into the hospital so none of my many many many cute little sweaters were put away property for the summer. This fall? So many moth holes. I wanted to cry. $100s in sweaters ruined.

Then I started darning and adding patches. Now everyone keeps asking "where do you get those sweaters with the patches and mis-matched weaving?"

My answer?

MOTHS.

(eta: "Moths? Haven't heard of that label." )

eta="edit to add", starting some post editing etiquette here.