Make Do and Mend

Does anybody remember darning socks?

My gran used to darn socks and she even had a special tool that looked like a wooden toadstool that she would insert inside the sock and then work criss-cross stitches back and forth until the hole had been mended (or darned).

That was over fifty years ago when clothes were far less accessible than they are today.  There were no huge supermarkets with ra…