Mending

 My favorite pair of alpaca mittens -- warm and black.  They have tremendous sentimental value for me, as they remind me of my old (now gone) Newfie, Maggie.    Unfortunately, they are wearing out.

 Mending is not my favorite pass-time.  But there are times when it has to be done.  My 2 favorite pair of winter woolen mittens both had holes in them that made them less than efficient at keeping up the winter cold.  I've mended them before, just pulling together the open edges with thread, but that was leaving less and less fabric on the thumbs -- ie no room left for my thumb!

 Not pretty, but they will hold together for a few more months.

The palms and the thumbs always seem to wear through ...

 

Once I sat down to do it, it wasn't so bad.  Just think of the darning as a form of "spot weaving" and it doesn't really take as long as you think it will.

Mending has the taint of drudge work to it.  Thankless way to spend time, when you could just toss them, and buy new.  Well -- not with these mittens.  I buy a new pair of woollen mittens every year, but it;s not every year that they actually fit well, or are warm, or that I really wind up loving them.  I love these 2 pair of mittens enough to spend the time to mend them.

In truth, there is a tremendous amount of creativity that goes into repairing things like this.  I contemplated several ways to approach the repairs.  Even purchased some leather to use as patches, but then couldn't figure out how to hand-sew through the leather.  I also considered taking them apart and replacing the pieces that were wearing through -- but I didn't want to take the time to de-construct and re-build 2 pairs of mittens that way.   In the end, I settled on the most basic approach -- darning with wool yarn,weaving new fabric with the old.

 Good as new -- sort of.  This will get me through the winter.