I would like to know if anyone still darns socks. Please call and leave your name and number at 410-332-6166. It’s for a study I’ve launched — how many Americans darn socks in the… ...

My grandmothers both did it. My mother did it. My mother-in-law #2 did it. And I have done it just because I wanted the experience…I learned how to darn a sock. Thanks to my mother, I’ve been ...

I wish now I had kept it. The darning process was to insert the egg into the sock, smooth the edges of the hole to be repaired neatly, then make a series of vertical stitches across the hole.

The first and most important thing about darning socks – mine a merino-wool blend my mother bought four years ago – is to turn the thing inside out and insert a wooden darning egg.

Whether it's a hole in the heel of a sock, a tear in a sweater or a bleach stain on a jacket, this is the opportunity for a new generation of sewers to bring out grandma's wooden darning egg.