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Once you've gone to the trouble of knitting a pair of socks, it's a shame to have them put out of commission by a hole. You can always knit high-wear areas with a reinforcing thread and particularly durable stitches, but the fact remains that, sooner or later, one of your hand knit socks will develop a hole-or at least a thin spot on its way to becoming a hole. When that happens, the solution is to darn the sock.

To darn effectively, you only need a few things. Yarn that matches in weight is a must-if you have leftovers from the knitting process, that's ideal, but if the hole is in a spot that won't be visible (anywhere on the sole, for instance) all you need is the same weight. A yarn needle, with an eye big enough to accept your yarn, is the second tool, and last but not least you need something to keep the remaining fabric under a bit of tension while you work with it. You can buy darning eggs at speciality shops, but anything smooth and rounded will do: golf balls, the end of a bannister post, a large spoon, and so forth. If you're flexible enough, you could even try darning the sock while it's on your foot!

If all you have so far is a thin spot, the job is pretty easy. Starting two or three stitches outside the thin area, begin threading your new yarn along the path of the original yarn, leaving an end a few inches long to be worked in later. Keep going until you're two or three stitches into good yarn on the opposite side of the thin spot. Repeat this process for every row that has thinning yarn in it, until all the thin stitches have been covered as if in duplicate stitch. Weave in the ends just as you would during regular knitting, and you're good to go.

If actual stitches are missing, things become slightly more complex; you'll have to create new ones. To do this, count how many rows have gaps, and cut that many lengths of something smooth, such as crochet cotton or embroidery floss-preferably in a color that contrasts to whatever you're going to be darning with. With your needle, run the lengths of the smooth yarn across the gaps, one length per row. These will give you a foundation to work on.

Now thread your needle with the darning yarn and run it along the path of the first good row below the gap, again just following the path of the existing yarn. Move up to the first row that has a gap, and this time start at least three stitches outside the gap. When you get to the first place that a stitch should be but isn't, bring the needle up through the loose loop of the stich below, around the smooth thread without piercing it, and then back down through the loop it came out of. Repeat this for every loose loop until you've crossed the gap, and then duplicate stitch for three stitches more. Repeat for every row that has a gap, and then duplicate stitch the row above. Remove the smooth thread and weave in your ends to finish off.

This is a lot easier to do than to explain, but if you're confused you can find pictures of the process in almost any good knitting reference.

Learn more about this author, Carrie Schutrick.
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