Darning socks

Repairman: [pointing to a Good/Evil switch on the back of the doll]
Yup, here's your problem. Someone set this thing to ``Evil''.




I've got some nice socks. I've had a lot of really good socks, in my life. And right now, I've got some really nice, warm, toasty, form fitting socks. Skiing, biking, running, every day walking around the city or riding the bus socks. There's a great poem by Pablo Neruda about socks-

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
that she knit with her
shepherd's hands.
Two socks as soft
as rabbit fur.
I thrust my feet
inside them
as if they were
two
little boxes
knit
from threads
of sunset
and sheepskin.

My feet were
two woolen
fish
in those outrageous socks,
two gangly,
navy-blue sharks
impaled
on a golden thread,
two giant blackbirds,
two cannons:
thus
were my feet
honored
by
those
heavenly
socks.
They were
so beautiful
I found my feet
unlovable
for the very first time,
like two crusty old
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that embroidered
fire,
those incandescent
socks.

Nevertheless
I fought
the sharp temptation
to put them away
the way schoolboys
put
fireflies in a bottle,
the way scholars
hoard
holy writ.
I fought
the mad urge
to lock them
in a golden
cage
and feed them birdseed
and morsels of pink melon
every day.
Like jungle
explorers
who deliver a young deer
of the rarest species
to the roasting spit
then wolf it down
in shame,
I stretched
my feet forward
and pulled on
those
gorgeous
socks,
and over them
my shoes.

So this is
the moral of my ode:
beauty is beauty
twice over
and good things are doubly
good
when you're talking about a pair of wool
socks
in the of winter.

-Pablo Neruda

Unfortunately, a few pairs of my favorite socks got holes in them, from wearing them too much, or especially wearing them while wearing shoes with holes. I did a google search yesterday about darning socks, asked at a couple of nearby businesses and found a shop that sold a suitable wool for darning lycra / knit blended socks. Here's a link to the blog I found with a good post about darning-

http://zigzagstitch.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/how-to-do-it-darn-socks/

and here are some photos of the work. Socks darned in this blog: Smartwool and Darn Tough.