ALL I NEED ARE PLAITS
If you recognise this then you’re older than you want to be!
It may have another name but I’ve always called it a darning mushroom, and this, or something very like it, was once found in every sewing box, an aid to darning a sock more easily. Our grandmothers knitted patterned socks on four needles that necessitated using a procedure called turning-the-heel, something almost as complicated as computer programming. In those far off days evenings were spent – not singing gaily round the piano – but darning holey socks.
I’m thinking about darning an orange woollen cardigan. I’ve had it for years and I love it; unfortunately, the moths (or their larvae) loved it too, and chewed their way through an elbow. My mother’s old darning mushroom should help me mend it although I’ve not had enough practice and the end result may look more cobbled than finely woven.
Darning mushrooms were chucked out around the time automatic washing machines arrived, when socks came on the market that were so cheap they could be thrown away if they wore out. Housewives were offered respite from the much hated chore of darning by the invention of materials that were actually manufactured, not found. It was unbelievable, wonderful, amazing! The nation embraced modern fabrics that were so much less expensive than wool and cotton, took no time to launder and often needed no ironing at all.
Decades on we have learned that everything comes at a price; we have woken up to the fact that man-made does not mean better than made-by-nature. Those sheets that were so easy to wash also never decayed, infinitesimal particles from them sailed out of our washing machines, down the drains into the sea to be ingested by birds and fish. And us.
Our throw-away society is starting to think again – it is watching The Repair Shop and thinking there might be something in making do and mending after all. I may sound a bit Greta Thurnberg but we know she’s got the right idea. But what I want to know is – if I grow my hair long enough for two plaits will I find darning easier?
