Darn!

 

 

School has been in session for a while now and I’m sure kids’ clothes are becoming worn and might have holes.  Do you repair them?  Especially when it’s something like socks, they are easier to replace than repair.  Early in the last century, however, before modern textiles, darning was an important skill.  Darning, according to the dictionary, is the act of mending torn clothes with rows of stitches and interweaving rows in order to span the gap.  There are special tools that make darning easier such as a darning egg.  We have a wonderful example of a darning egg with a handle from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection.

Today most of us will just replace the torn item, but darning was once a necessity.  Cloth and/or clothes were expensive and not easily replaced.  Darning was used to reinforce fabric and replace areas where the fabric had been ripped or disintegrated according to nordicneedle.net.  Holes along a seam or holes that could take patches didn’t need darning but if the hole wasn’t on the seam or if a patch was impractical, like the heel of a sock, then darning was needed.  Women and girls learned how to darn as part of their education in becoming future wives and mothers (www.bbc.co.uk).  It is possible to darn with a sewing machine, apparently, but is usually done by hand.  The darning stitch is a stitch where thread is woven in rows eventually filling the hole (there are other fancier darning stitches as well).  Usually you want to match the thread closely to the fabric as to hide the hole.  The darning egg, therefore, would hold the shape of the fabric while you created these weaves.  You could also use a darning mushroom or darning gourd.

Darning has fallen out of style these days.  Sometimes I attempt to fix my socks but after this article I have learned that I am definitely not darning.  Without darning, the darning egg has become a tool of the past.  Many people have a darning egg only because it brings with it a memory of their mother or grandmother.  Our darning egg from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection is a great example of this tool from a woman who wanted to preserve history and pass it on to future generations.  Stop by the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame and check out other items from the past of Southeastern New Mexico.