Mending socks

If there's anything bad about the coming of fall and the end of summer, it's that I will have to start wearing socks again. Other than that, I'm really looking forward to school starting and having some semblance of a routine again. Socks will be a problem because all last spring (the last time I wore socks), I'd usually find that if I could locate a matching pair of socks, either one of both of the socks would have a hole in the region of my big toe. In the years before I was an EnviroMom, said discovery would have prompted me to shove the holey socks in the back of the drawer and gone out to buy new socks. In this brave new world of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle I must think long an hard before slapping down any plastic and adding to my credit card debt. Here's a typical conversation I have with myself (and there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself as long as it's not too loud or in public):

Do I really need socks?
Yes, I have bad circulation and I literally get cold feet.
Do I need new socks?
Well, I'm really not excited about buying USED socks.
Could you make the holey socks do??
Yes, I suppose I could. But that would require that I mend them. Can you pass me those flipflops?
OK -- talk to you in September, sista. Enjoy those flipflops.

So here we are. Fall is upon us. Or at least that shortening of the days and the little nip in the air that hints that fall is not far off. Time to mend those socks. I find mending one of those funny dying arts I always seem to be lamenting. No one teaches you how to mend. You either do or you don't. I guess I've always been willing to pick up a needle and thread and give it my best go at darning a sock, whether I knew what I was doing or not (Darn you, sock!). The problem with mending for me is it always seems to be low on the priority list.

In addition to the large pile of socks that need holes mended, there's a sheet that's gotten so threadbare someone is going to wake up with a foot tied up in the hole before too long, various missing buttons and tiny jobs needed on the kids' clothing, some shorts of my husband's that need to be patched. The list just goes on.

Any state-champion menders out there with words of wisdom for novices like me?