A bit like with cooking, reading how to do something crafty can be off-putting as it's difficult to imagine yourself doing it. But as this video shows, it's easy if you watch someone else doing it. Which is why this is a jolly useful guide to darning a sock that should encourage all of us to stop binning our socks just because our big toe peeps out and whip out the darning mushroom instead. The video, made by ethical textile retailer Green Fibres, has already been viewed over 5,000 times. Good to know that granny chic is alive and well.
For me, darning a sock is fun because it's an excuse to sit on the sofa and watch bad TV, plus you get to feel virtuous and fifties house wife - or husband - ish, and I'd never consider doing it without making myself a hot chocolate first, for sustenance.
According to Green Fibres: 'Most socks are made from conventional cotton, which is the world's most polluting crop, and that nearly a quarter of all insecticides ' mainly damaging organo-phosphates ' produced globally each year are poured and sprayed over cotton plants. The damage to the environment and to poor cotton farmers around the world is massive. A World Health Organisation report estimates that up to 40,000 farmers die from pesticide poisoning each year.'
You will need:
A darning mushroom (you can buy one here or you could improvise with a plastic bottle or a lightbulb ' this'll make sense when you watch the video)
Some darning thread
A large needle
A sock with a hole in it
Eco-cheat: still not ready to take up needle and thread? You can buy organic socks, certified by the Soil Association from Green Fibres and Natural Collection