Darn it! (Mending Project) (Patreon)

I wear my clothing till it literally falls apart.

Case in point, my bee socks that I've had for easily over a decade. I think they may have actually been a gift from someone? Maybe I bought them? Whoever paid, I definitely squeezed every last drop of dollar value out of 'em before retiring them to the mending pile a couple years. Unfortunately, I did not yet know how to mend socks back then, so really it was just a "hoarding literal garbage" pile. But! It's ok! Because now I'm learning how to repair clothing! So I was right to hold on to all these bits and scraps that can no longer serve a purpose, Matt. 

To tackle the toe hole I used my darning egg, which keeps the material stretched taught against a curved surface so that it'll retain that rounded shape as you mend it. 

For the threadbare sections, I just kinda wove through the existing fibers, reinforcing them with my thicker thread. These were flatter areas of the sock, so I just used my tiniest embroidery hoop to keep it pulled taut. 

Ta-da! 

"Now, Erika." You may be thinking. "That's cool that you fixed it, but your stitches look a fair bit chunkier than the surrounding sock material."

Yes, yes it is. But ask me if I can feel the mended sections when I'm wearing them. 

The answer to that is also "yes".

Yup. 

If I have a choice between wearing an undamaged sock or one of my mended socks, I'm deffo gunna pick the undamaged sock. But wearing my patch job isn't the worst! It's fine! It's fine. And when I've got my shoes on, I barely notice the change in sock texture at all. It's fine. 

I dunno, I'm just having fun learning my new skill. They're functional and I'm sure after enough practice I'll figure out how to make them feel seamless. 

At the very least, this hobby keeps me distracted when I need it, like when I'm hanging out in the Emergency Room. 

I WAS FINE. I mean, I wasn't fine, but it wasn't actually an EMERGENCY-emergency, it's just my clinic and the Express Care office couldn't see me/didn't have the resources to do the lab work I needed, so I was trucked off to the ER to get a sample of my blood while I was in the process of having "an episode" (for lack of a better term). Everything came back normal which is simultaneously good and also "so what the fuck is wrong then?", but that's a mystery for another day!

Anyway, I sent this picture to a friend as an update and even though I didn't mention the thing in my hands the first thing she replied back was something like "Are you DARNING A SOCK IN THE ER?"

Surround yourself with people who 'get' you. They are the real treasure in life.