Darn it! no! Reknit it!

My local friends of the library has 3 used book sales every year in which they sell donated books and magazines. Well at the sale (or rather the pre-sale because I'm a member!) I scored a whole stack of Interweave knits magazines. I bought 15 of them even though I had a few thinking I'd sort out what I already owned and let my knitting friends choose from the leftovers. One thing I like about the older magazines is that you can really tell which styles are "classic," they are the ones that still look good 12 years later.
Another thing I like is that the articles can be really helpful. So when I saw that the Winter 1998 issue had an article on repairing your knitting by darning and a few other methods I decided to save it. Good thing too because I discovered to my horror a hole in one of my hand knit socks.


So I decided to dig out this magazine and read the article and try, not just darning but maybe something new (because I already darned some socks). Of course it took me a while because somehow even though I have no qualms about knitting in public, or making homemade jam, or baking bread I seem to have in my head that "mending" is old fashioned old lady work.
Which is stupid because I don't think "mending" things around the house is old fashioned or delegated to old ladies. I think of that as practical.

So today I decided to get over this and read the article and figure out what I needed. Lo and Behold, I learned several things. First is that you don't need to darn, you can re-knit. AND if you don't have a hole yet, you can swiss darn. So today, I reknit this hole.

First I gathered my supplies:
The magazine, the sock, the extra yarn, several sets of needles as two sizes are needed, and a tapestry needle.
I forgot to include my egg and my scissors. But I had them.
The first instruction was to make the hole square--which meant making it wider! It also was supposed to be an odd number of rows.

Then you were to pick up stitches using a needle two sizes smaller than you originally used, two before the hole, all the way across to two after. How were you supposed to know what size needle you used before Ravelry? I have no idea. But I looked on ravelry and discovered not only did I use size 2.25mm needles, but I finished these socks last July. So tsk tsk tsk on longevity! I'd have more to say about this yarn if I wasn't a firm believer in the adage: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all (except to your husband who just hears yarn yarn yarn yarn no matter what I say about yarn)
It looked like this:

And then you are supposed to knit the same number of rows you are repairing in the pattern of the area you are repairing--in this case stockinette.
So then I had this little flap:

AND THEN...
well and then the instructions said to graft it or kitchner it to the top and I got so engrossed in the directions I neglected to take pictures. This is why it is called "disasters with yarn" and not "perfection with yarn"...

I managed it and my patch looks like:


Then I sewed up the sides using the tails. I'm fairly happy with the result.

I think sometime soon I need to do a complete entry on swiss darning because you can use that to shore up the "thin" spots on socks that eventually wear into holes, and I have a few of those.