I noticed the other day that my Lorna’s Laces Sweetpea socks are wearing thin on the soles:
It’s not much more than a year since I finished them, but I loved the colours so much I’m sure I ended up wearing them more than my other socks, and (unusually) have worn them a few times on weekdays as well as at weekends, which means that instead of mostly being worn around the house with slippers they’ve been inside shoes or boots for 12 hours of the day and have covered several miles of walking in that time. I do also wonder whether my gauge was a bit loose; they’re 8 stitches per inch, which is what the pattern specified and what I generally get on 2.5mm needles, but I think the Lorna’s Laces is a bit finer than the Opal and Lana Grossa I mostly use and the fabric feels a bit less dense than normal. Perhaps I should have gone down to 2.0mm.
Anyway, I guess the only answer is to darn them, although I’m a little nervous about that. I do know how to darn, in theory (yet another thing learnt from the Chalet School books, where hopeless new girl after hopeless new girl was taught how to darn her stockings in a way that would pass muster with Mademoiselle), but in practice I’m a bit worried I’ll bodge it up. In the absence of Mary-Lou Trelawney, can anyone recommend a good online tutorial, or offer tips on mending the soles of socks? Should I buy a mushroom (a thing which my other half thinks is as peculiar as a special hammer to hit cricket bats with)?
In happier news, I have almost reached the heel of the push-me-pull-you socks:
and have also returned to the lilac cotton cardi which has been hibernating since September, since it’s starting to feel as though it might be cotton cardi weather soon!
