It’s A Funny Old World: Dillie Keane
‘I’d assumed darning had died out with slide projectors and Dymo labels’
Ibought some darning wool recently. Not exactly earthshattering news, I know, but for those of us over a certain age who remember our mums mending all our clothes, it was quietly pleasing. I haven’t been able to get darning wool for years, not since the haberdashery section in my local department store was replaced by a brow bar, a juice concession and a display of man-bags.
I’d assumed that darning had died out with slide projectors and Dymo labels, until it suddenly occurred to me to search the internet. Blow me down, I discovered a wonderful world of crafty types, not just knitters and crochet enthusiasts, but lacemakers and bobbin whittlers and all manner of people happily indulging in the ancient delight of making and making do. And mending.
The great thing about mending is that you feel you’ve achieved something very quickly for not much effort. It’s not like making a Fair Isle sweater, which requires iron concentration, months of effort and a lot of swearing. Darning, on the other hand, can restore an old favourite to your wardrobe and makes an evening of dull TV surprisingly bearable. My man loves a historical documentary and I do find that it makes the evening go faster if I can sew my way through Hitler’s Tunnels or Pipe Smoking in the Elizabethan Era.
So I ordered a whole load of darning wools. Over the years, I’ve accrued a lot of holey pullovers, which sit in a basket by the telly, waiting for me to thread my needle. Some have been savaged by moths; others have been attacked by my man’s elbows. The elbows are simple enough to repair because those leather patches are still fairly easy to come by, but the holes left by those pesky larvae are trickier. The wool arrived – how marvellous the internet is! Only one problem – none of the wools matched the jumpers. That’s the conundrum with internet shopping – you can’t go and stand in the doorway of the shop to check the match under daylight. The holes remained unmended.
Then, one day, His Lordship noticed a piece in his newspaper about darning and how it was the coming thing.
‘There’s a workshop in town,’ he said. ‘You should go!’ And I did. It was marvellous. There were all ages, even one teenager! We learnt to throw all our preconceptions about colour out of the window. Be brave! Visible mending is The Thing! We must show our darns and advertise the joy of a long-loved item of clothing! Say farewell to wasteful consumerism and display your care for the planet. You know the kind of guff.
The upshot is, my man’s now going round with a lot of beautifully mended jumpers in a charming array of colours. His red jumper is sporting sky blue spots, his green V-neck has purple elbows and the yellow cashmere has any number of colours dotted all over. He’s a bit dubious, but he likes the idea of saving stuff. And I think he’s secretly quite amused.
The trouble is, now I’ve got the bug, I’ve run out of jumpers to mend.
Don’t stand still – I might just make you take that woolly off!