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the_eggwhiteFor a long time, I've modified and mended my own clothes. I have short legs, short arms and a neck so wide I could swallow planets whole. This has generally meant that throughout my life I've been forced to modify my own clothes. I just started doing it because I needed them to fit every once in a while.
Since nothing "off the shelf" fits me very well, I learned to do the basics pretty early on - taking up my trousers, shortening shirt or jumper sleeves... that kind of thing. Borrowing a sewing machine a while back was a godsend, because it meant I could take up a pair of trousers in about 5-10 minutes, including setting up the machine.
But there has been one thing that I've never known how to do. I never knew how to darn. This meant I could fix seams, or make new ones, or modify the length of various tube-shaped garment parts... but if I found a wider hole in a jumper or a sock then there wasn't much I could do. I worked out my own way of doing it which seemed to pretty much work, but it wasn't great and seemed a bit rough and ready. Whenever I asked if there was a better way, people suggested I should try darning it... but nobody ever told me how.
Today, I finally decided to look it up.
The great revelation? The way I'd been doing it? The way that I thought was a bodge job that I made up to cover for the fact that I don't know how to darn? That I've been doing for at least half my life?
It's called darning.
Since nothing "off the shelf" fits me very well, I learned to do the basics pretty early on - taking up my trousers, shortening shirt or jumper sleeves... that kind of thing. Borrowing a sewing machine a while back was a godsend, because it meant I could take up a pair of trousers in about 5-10 minutes, including setting up the machine.
But there has been one thing that I've never known how to do. I never knew how to darn. This meant I could fix seams, or make new ones, or modify the length of various tube-shaped garment parts... but if I found a wider hole in a jumper or a sock then there wasn't much I could do. I worked out my own way of doing it which seemed to pretty much work, but it wasn't great and seemed a bit rough and ready. Whenever I asked if there was a better way, people suggested I should try darning it... but nobody ever told me how.
Today, I finally decided to look it up.
The great revelation? The way I'd been doing it? The way that I thought was a bodge job that I made up to cover for the fact that I don't know how to darn? That I've been doing for at least half my life?
It's called darning.
