darning loom – On the Needles

You guys, I’ve got a new tool, and I love it!

It’s a Speedweve-style darning loom, and it’s just the coolest. I’ll be honest, I found out about this from an ad on Instagram, so you know, not the most high-brow place to learn about new tools. But, regardless of where I found it, I’m excited to have it, use it, and tell you about it!

First off, here’s the little loom. It fits really nicely in my hand, and has two parts. A lovely, smooth wooden disk that goes inside the sock (or whatever garment you’re darning), and a hefty metal piece that goes on the outside. They’re held together with rubber bands.

My favorite part is flipping the little hooks back and forth. It’s just so satisfying! In fact, it’s so satisfying, I taught myself how to make an animation, so you can experience it yourself:

Lucky for me, I’ve got about a million socks on the verge of falling apart, so I’ve got lots of darning ahead of me. This is one of my less-embarrassing socks:

So, I slip the wooden disk into the sock, and arrange it under the bare patch, hook up the metal part of the loom and lock it in place with rubber bands.

Then I get a nice long piece of sock yarn and start warping the loom. You make tiny stitches at the bottom of the area to be patched, and loop the thread around the loops.

Then it’s just a matter of weaving through the warps. Flipping the hooks back and forth lets you lift/lower the threads of the warp, which makes for faster weaving. And, at the end of each row, you make a tiny stitch into the sock, fastening the patch in place as you weave it.

After that, I take off the loom, sew the top warp loops in place with the whip stitch, and I’m on my way. I ended up making four different patches to cover all the thin spots on this sock- truly living my Oliver Twist Fantasy. (And like I said, these are some of my least disreputable… I really have to start up sock knitting again.)

Do you darn your socks? Do you have any fun new tools?