Learn It: Swiss Darning
Our glass darning egg | |
We have a lot of treasured needlework items from our grandparents, and one of them is a glass darning egg. I display it in my craft room. It's just beautiful; I love the blue glass.
A darning egg is a time-honored tool that provides a smooth, solid surface for darning, reinforcing seams, or grafting together the final toe stitches of nearly complete socks.
These tools might be thought of as obsolete, but they're as useful today as they ever were in the past. Learning to darn socks is an important skill that'll help you prolong the life of your knit socks. I've used our glass darning egg while grafting toes, and it works like a charm
Here's one method to use when you notice that the heels or toes of your socks are getting thin. Better to catch the thin area before it becomes an actual hole!
Swiss Darning
For repairing garments when the fabric is still intact, but worn, Swiss darning is the ideal technique. Following the path of the knitted yam with a blunt tapestry needle threaded with yarn, you reinforce the fabric invisibly. The technique may also be used to add different colored stitches to plain knitting. Using a blunt needle enables you to move in and out of the stitches easily without catching or splitting yarns.
1. Fabric that is worn but still intact can be repaired with Swiss darning.
2. Bring tapestry needle from back to front at base of the V of the stitch to be covered. Insert yarn needle from right to left under both hops of the stitch in the row above. 3. Insert tapestry needle through the base of the V again and bring it through the base of the V of the next stitch to be covered. |
Pretty neat darning technique, right?
Bockleton Socks |
The Knitting Daily Shop has a beautiful collection of handknit sock patterns, and we've also got a free eBook, Knitting Socks with Knitting Daily: 7 Free Sock Knitting Patterns. Here's to sock knitting!
Cheers,
P.S. What's your favorite method of darning socks? Share it with us in the comments!
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