Drat that hole; darn that sock!

Our new dog Prewash has been surprisingly (to me) non-chewy for a new dog, but she's still managed to consume and create holes in some of our belongings.  This sock, which is a SmartWool sock that my sister gave me as a gift, was one of her early victims.

My little toes are coming out for air.

For a while I "fixed" the problem by wearing the sock only on my right foot, so that that hole on the right wouldn't line up with my big toe.  But eventually even my small toes started poking out, so I decided to use one of my favorite sock "darning techniques" from the awesome book, The Tightwad Gazzette.

The process isn't actually darning, it's patching -- but today is Talk Like a Pirate Day so I feel like I need to say "Darrrrrr-n sock, matey!"  You need a sacrificial patch of fabric (I used a scrap from a purple-tshirt-turned-rag), plus a needle, thread, and scissors.  It also helps to have a wooden egg, or a hard small ball, to stick in the sock to sew against.  I have a wooden egg painted in cow colors that I keep in my sewing basket for just this purpose.

When I started darning socks, I realized,
"Oh, that's what all those wooden eggs are for!"

You stick the patch and the egg into the sock, so that the patch goes all the way across the hole, and then use the needle and thread to sew around the hole, fastening the sock to the patch on the outside.

Stitch around the hole. Don't mind the dog hair.

Then turn the sock inside out, without yet cutting the thread.  I always use a patch much bigger than the hole, because it's easier to make sure the whole hole is covered.   So once I turn the sock inside out, I cut off the excess, leaving about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of fabric around the existing stitching.

Cut off the excess (purple) patch without accidentally
cutting a new hole in the sock.

And then I stitch around the patch, fastening the newly trimmed edges to the sock.  The egg of course has now moved to the inside, making it easier for me to do the holding and stitching.

Stiching around once more.  

This whole process takes maybe 10 minutes, and usually 5.  That's faster than going to a store -- and it's definitely cheaper.  I don't know that I'd do this with my running socks, which seem to reproduce in my drawers like bunnies, but I have exactly 3 pairs of these very nice SmartWool socks, and they're nice enough that I'd like to keep them around.  So 10 minutes of time on a sunny Sunday afternoon seems more than worth it for preserving a pair of my favorite socks.

And that's the hole post.