A darn good job

What do you do when your sock has a hole? Do you (a) throw it out; (b) shove it to the back of your sock drawer; (c) mend it?

I bought a packet of “hidden” socks to fit in with a trend of wearing low cut socks with sneakers. At the time, I thought these socks were disproportionately expensive for the little amount of fabric (and sewing) used to make the sock. It wasn’t long before I had worn a hole in all three pairs, so I purchased another packet, only to result in six pairs of socks, all with holes. Exasperated by the perceived waste and unwilling to buy any more, I set about crudely mending them.

On many occasions since, I have re-repaired them. I have also expanded my sock collection with other brands, thinking perhaps this new brand will last longer, but all I have done is expanded the pile of socks that need mending.

The virtue of darning socks

As this mending pile grows, it’s made me think about the practice of mending clothes. I compare my motivations – a desire to make do with what I have for environmental reasons – to motivations, or obligations, for mending in days gone by. In doing so, I’ve opened a can of worms for myself reading treatises on the politics of needlework and gender, frugality, anti-consumerism, virtue ethics and socio-political ideologies, including Plato and Epicurus’ views on simple living. One critical point of difference between then and now, is that past generations had to contend with the social mores of the day, where judgement was cast on the visible evidence of mending, worse if bare flesh was showing, particularly where it ought not. Shabby repairs or even careful patching was often deemed as a sign of poverty. The Bendigo Independent investigating claims of poverty in 1905 opted to cast a moral bet each way,

‘our reporter had a hurried glance at the congregation of children at the largest State school in the district. There were plenty of patched [soles], and well-darned socks and stockings to be seen. But this circumstance may illustrate either poverty or frugality — perhaps a little of each.’[2]

The moral undertones of household hints liberally peppered through the papers could not be avoided, ‘Should Stockings be mended?’ asked The Sun in 1919. In answering its own question, it stated ‘In the Victorian age, when darning was exalted into a high and holy service, stockings were good, honest things, and to throw them away when they had holes in them would have been wicked waste.’ [3]

Satirical article associating darning with poverty, 1914

A necessary acquirement for women

By 1869, needlework had become a compulsory subject for girls [4], however it wasn’t until the reform resulting in the Education Act 1872 enforced all children between the ages of 8 and 14 to attend school.  The 1922 book, A History of State Education, described needlework as a ‘necessary acquirement for women’.  The first schedule in the 1872 Act outlining the subjects required to ensure a child was sufficiently educated included ‘Sewing and Needlework in addition for Girls’.  The subject of sewing and needlework in the curriculum was ‘brief but comprehensive, and three hours a week was the usual time-table allowance for the subject [of needlework]’[5] Reassuringly the same authors’ note, ‘The girls have not been overlooked, the work in cookery and needlework is related to home conditions as much as possible.’[6]

Education schedules as part of the Education Act Reform 1872

The skill of darning taught in home economics had long disappeared from the school curriculum by the time I went through school. Needlework only appeared in one semester in year seven, as ‘Needlecraft’ and in year eight as ‘Textiles’[7]. I made a very basic sampler with a standard running hand stitch and a shirt (described as a garment in the school report) on the sewing machine, but not one sock was darned. Had I been born in a different generation, I would have finely honed skills of sewing, embroidery, and mending. I would either love or loathe it and it would be my job, as woman of the house (single or married) to maintain clothing to a respectable standard.

Basic school sampler c.1988

Darning socks, a false economy

The economic cost of repairing has changed over time, but what hasn’t changed, is the cost of time spent on repairing and darning. The Weekly Times reported in 1908, ‘The stockings and socks of a household require frequent attention. Cheap hose is false economy, but even the best have to be repaired in time.’[8]  Author Lucy Maud Montgomery recorded in her diary in 1901, her exasperation when she was working in a newspaper printing press in Halifax, Canada before she experienced global success with her book Anne of Green Gables,

‘My first idea was to write in the evenings. Well, I tried it. I couldn’t string two marketable ideas together. Besides, I had to keep my buttons sewed on and stockings darned.’ [9]

Emrys Westacott, professor of philosophy at New York’s Alfred University wrote in his book, The Wisdom of Frugality, “There was a time when it almost always made economic sense to repair an item rather than replace it, so people would darn socks, patch sheets … But when half a dozen socks cost what a minimum-wage worker can earn in less than an hour … some of the old ways can seem outdated,”[10]. The journalist profiling Westacott’s book in The Atlantic acknowledged although darning one’s socks is an inefficient and uneconomical way to spend time by today’s standards, it ‘could still be considered a principled vote against consumerism and for environmentalism.’ [11]

Cost of time or time well spent?

Determined to improve my efforts in repairing my socks, I asked my father-in-law to fashion me a wooden darning mushroom on his wood lathe. I watched a YouTube tutorial and had a go. It was very satisfying to pick up the skill of darning so quickly and patch a hole neatly. I spent a good hour or more on just one sock, and with 14 socks waiting in line, it became clear that the principled vote against consumerism and for environmentalism is going to cost me some time. However, this is easier to swallow than the crushing burden of maintaining the propriety of clothing, as described in 1901:

‘Beautiful mending is said to be a lost art. Our grandmothers regarded it as a well bred accomplishment, and to darn muslin so dexterously that the repair could be not be discovered unless held up to the light was considered the triumph of a polite education.’ The Age, ‘How to Simplify Domestic Life: The Mender’ 1901 [12]

My pile of mending sits in one of my grandmother’s sewing baskets next to the television so I can pick it up when I have some time and there is good light, the only drawback is that elusive component: time.

Maybe my question should have been, what do you do when your sock has a hole?

Do you (a) throw it out; (b) shove it to the back of your sock drawer; or (c) relocate to the mending basket and hope for the best?

Footnotes

[1] ‘How to Simplify Domestic Life: The Mender’ in The Age, Saturday 30 March 1901, p.13

[2] ‘Martyrs to Poverty: How the Bendigo Poor live’ in The Bendigo Independent, Wed 2 August 1905, p.3. 

[3] ‘Darning and Devotion: Should Stockings be mended? Strain on the eyesight’ in The Sun Sunday 15 June 1919, p.13.

[4] LJ Blake, Vision and Realisation: a centenary history of state education in Victoria, Vol 1, 112.

[5] Sweetman, E., Long, C. R., & Smyth, J. (1922). A history of state education in Victoria. Melbourne: Melbourne: C. Parker for the Education Depart. of Victoria. P.138.

[6] Ibid,. p.240.

[7] Author’s School Reports, private collection.

[8] ‘A Darning Bureau’ in The Weekly Times, Saturday 25 April 1908, p.12.

[9] Mary Rubio & Elizabeth Waterson ed., The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Vol 1: 1889-1910, Oxford University Press, 1985, p.270.

[10] Emrys Westacott, The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less Is More – More or Less, Princeton University Press, 2016, pp17-18.. ProQuest Ebook Central,  accessed online.

[11] Joe Pinsker, ‘Frugality Isn’t What it used to be: what use is there today for one of the oldest virtues?’ in The Atlantic, 23 October 2016. Link 

[12] ‘How to Simplify Domestic Life: The Mender’ in The Age, Saturday 30 March 1901, p.13.

Illustrations

Satirical article published in The Advocate Saturday 5 December 1914, p.30