How to darn your socks.

 I have learned that knowing how to darn a pair of socks actually isn't common knowledge.

It was passed on to me by my grandmothers 

I don't think they learn it at school anymore. Here in Norway it's red listed as a skill that is in danger of disappearing 

In hop that some of you might want to learn this skill I have made a little tutorial. 

Here is what you need. 

A blend yarn with nylon or darning thread. 

Why you want to use a blend yarn is because pure wool is not so strong and will tear faster than a blended yarn. Socks 🧦 get a lot of wear especially on the heels and toes. 

If you don't have a blended yarn you can use a sewing thread 🧵 together with your wool yarn. This is also a good tip when you are knitting socks to put in a sewing thread together with your sockyarn when knitting the heel. 

You also will need a needle if you have home knitted socks use a darning needle. I didn't and used a longer and smaller needle. 

It's helpful with a darning mushroom 🍄 but you don't need one. There are a lot of other things you can use instead 

I like the orange as you can eat it when you are done 👍 🔝 

You start with creating a base with running stitches. If you don't know running stitch it's just up and down 

Here I have come all the way to the hole. 

There you need to just make the stitch all the way over the hole to the other side and stitch on the other side of the hole. 

Now I have covered the whole thing and the base is ready. If you like you can continue with the same colour thread. I used to diffent as it will be easier for you to see. 

Now it's time to work the other way. Still the same stitching up and down. When you get to the long threads covering the whole, you must weave up and down on thead over the needle on under all the way. Make sure you do opposite one your way back, under the thread you weaved over last row and over the thread you went under 

And you keep going until you have covered the entire hole and the rest of the stitches 

Congratulations you have managed to darn your socks 🧦 

Want to learn more about darning? 

You can listen to the Podcast from Seworganisedstyle

There I'm talking about darning and mending with Maria  

Want more mending inspiration follow our mending community Mendingmayhem

Speed weave / darning loom

 A while back I bought a little speed weave  Here

But I have been to busy to play with it until now. It's a very cool 😎 gadget don't you think 😁  If you never heard of a speed weave, it's a tiny loom for darning.

I had a really good time trying it out. 

This was my first attempt of darning with it 

Not to bad for a first attempt. 

My second attempt turned out a little better 

I don't think it was very fast, and I would have done it much faster using a darning mushroom 🍄 

The end result however was much better and it is a fun way to darn socks 🧦 

I'm of course joining Evelyn  for some Mondaymending over at Instagram.

If you haven't listened to the interview with me and  Suzie over at Sew organized style hurry up and listen as there will be a new episode on Friday 😁

I am also making a slow progress on my mother's sweater. It is a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end 🔚 

I have enjoyed late summer and spent much time outside. Today it is more autumn weather and rain ☔ 

Wishing you a wonderful new week ahead 

Katrine 🌼 

Confession from a newly appointed teacher

This new job just took me by surprise as I never applied for it, nor is it a job I want.
You can surely say it came out of the blue.
I actually shouldn't work at all. I'm chronic ill and I struggle to make things go around in my everyday life.

But there is a crisis going on and schools are all closed. So we all need to do our best.
I though home schooling ment teachers would have online programs and follow up with the kids. My bad. Mostly they give out tasks for the day and the kids have to study by themselves.
Since my kid has special needs it's not really working out. Probably not for a lot of other kids too
At school my kid has an assistant who helps him out.
I never actually liked school.
They don't do things the way we did. And it's PowerPoint, word document and annoying apps. That is impossible to understand and to use.
There should be added something here and there and recording sound files and God knows what... Calculate with x and y
Glaciers and history and science projects to try to understand.
It's ages since I was in school and I can't remember half of this. To be honest I did probably not pay very much attention back then.

The first week I spent more time on finding out what to do and how to do it than I actually managed to help my son with his work.
I wanted to cry.. I was so tired I had 2 extra naps a day. I learned my kid a hole lot of new swearing 🤬 words. So he actually learned something... I felt like an idiot most of the time... I pulled my hair and seriously thinking about throwing the computer out the door...
The only light in this is the one  teacher who calls and help my kid very much.
This week the apps and other annoying stuff made a little bit more sense. But not very much
I'm still not a teacher. And I still hate to do school work.
But I do want to help my kid as much as I can.
And we are the lucky once as my kid only needs help for school work 👍 as I browse through the news I can read about families with disabled children who suddenly have absolutely no support at all. So I feel I'm a whining bitch while I think about when I last had a proper hot meal that wasn't hotdogs or frozen pizza 🍕 because when school is done I am out of energy.
I think we probably can grow potatoes on the living room floor. That is probably a good idea, as I don't have to go outside to pick them up... 🤣 🤣 🤣
But at least my kid gets a bit of school.

And he made this beautiful redesign from some old bottles. It made me really proud ❤️
.
I have tried to keep some sanety by trying to do all the fun prompts for mendmarch. Hosted by the fun and mendy Kate @visiblemend over at Instagram.
Usually I like to write much more about my mending here but due to the situation you can check out my Instagram or  Facebook page  instead.
Adding a few pictures of what I was supposed to blog about

Gratitude for my hubby and all the other truckers that does a very important job every day but people first noticed how important they are now due to the crisis.
Text says without trucks, Norway 🇳🇴 stops
Here is an article about how important key workers are treated in this crisis. I'm ashamed. Is this how we should treat key workers the article is in Norwegian

My sister got her dress repaired 

 Worst winter coat ever got a lot of new mends

            Bugge for my hubby's shirt

           My sister in her franken pants 👖

                    Spilling coffee ☕

                      Fixing dad's shirt

             Very old and loved woolshirt

                  Crochet longer sleeves


Though I feel like I rather should clean..
But keeping sane is pretty important too.
Though I'm pretty sure homeschooling will kill me before corona...
I should have been outside making the garden ready for spring 🌷

I have piles of dirty laundry to do.
And I have been writing on this post for days, but I just keep falling asleep.
But it's important to keep positive right?
So I was very happy to see we have got lots of snow this morning.

 Something I usually hate. But now it means I don't need to think about gardening for a while.
I lost several kg because I'm to tired to eat. That's really good as my clothes lately seems to have been shrinking in the wardrobe. If homeschooling keeps up for another month I actually might have a bikini body in June..

The deers have been really helpful too cutting back all our fruit trees and even a holy bunch and some rhododendrons too.
That is pure luck 🤞 🍀

I probably can leave the laundry for a while, with social distancing no one will notice my shirt has a stain from last week 🤣🤣🤣
And I can send my hubby to the store. He can just say he came straight from work if someone says he has dirty clothes.

I got to refresh my knowledge from childhood and the book they are reading in Norwegian is really good. I hope I will manage to get to the end.

But now I really need to have another nap.
Stay safe and stay home
Katrine 🌼