Tag Archives: visible mending

Big Mending

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I guess I’m on a mending streak here. My dad was in town a few weeks ago, and he brought his favorite sweater with him. (Hi Dad!) Halfway through the visit he showed me the elbows on his sweater, and they were… disreputable. But, that’s what happens when you wear a sweater every day for years. (Even if you put leather elbow patches on it.)

Elbow 1- Bad.

Elbow 2- Very bad.

He asked me if it was fixable, and I said yes, of course! But after a little investigating I realized that even if I was very careful, the holes/runs were so big that no matter what I did, wouldn’t be invisible. But Dad said that he didn’t mind, and in fact, he asked me to use bright red yarn to fix it! I love a little bit of visible mending, so I got to work.

I used a crochet hook to fix the bigger runs (again, not perfectly- the sweater was commercially made, so I didn’t have the ability to completely match the knitted pattern), then brought in the red yarn.

I picked up stitches along the bottom edge of the holes, and started working back and forth in stockinette stitch. Every RS row, I picked up a stitch from the sweater at the beginning and end of the row (and sometimes in the middle, too), and worked a K2tog with the red and the gray yarns.

The K2togs allowed me to attach the patches as I was knitting them, so there wasn’t any sewing! And, as a bonus, it let me increase and decrease the size of the patches to pretty precisely cover the thin parts of the sweater.

Is it perfect? Not exactly. But I do love the cozy charm of a well-worn and well-patched sweater. And Dad will (hopefully!) get to keep wearing his sweater for years to come.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve mended?

A little more mending

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You know how I was so proud of the visible mending I did the other day on my favorite sweater?

I was totally patting myself on the back, pleased with how well it turned out and how much I liked the little red patch. I even was thinking that I should add some decorative bits of visible mending on parts of the sweater that don’t strictly need mending yet. You know, for aesthetic reasons.

Well, in a real Icarus moment, I went to further admire my handiwork yesterday, and I realized that… I hadn’t actually fixed the cuff. It turns out that I had only patched up part of the thinned-out section. Sigh.

Oh well, I guess it’s an opportunity for me to get a little more color introduced to the sweater, albeit not for “aesthetic” reasons. Ah well.

I picked up the dropped stitches with a little sapphire-blue wool, reinforced the cuff edge with some fairly random stitches and then locked the whole thing down with a little blanket stitch.

It’s not as tidy as the red patch was, but I was pressed for time and this should hold well enough. Fingers crossed that I’ve got all the loose ends this time around. But, if I don’t, well, then I guess I’ll just keep adding colors.

Have you ever had to go back and re-mend something right after you thought you fixed it?

A little mending

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Just a quick little project today, and it’s one of those one that I’ve been meaning to do for… a year?

This is my favorite winter sweater. It’s super cozy wool that’s been worn in just the right amount so it’s not too scratchy. I love the cables, and the fit is perfect. The sleeves are just the right length. You get it. It’s the holy grail of sweaters (in my opinion, anyway).

But the problem with having a favorite sweater is that you wear it all the time, and eventually, it starts to fall apart a bit. Which is exactly what happened here. I must have caught my cuff on something, because it’s started to slowly unravel just a bit. I fully intended to fix it when I put it away for the winter, but, clearly that didn’t happen.

It’s also been several years since I knit up this sweater, so I have no idea where the matching yarn could be (assuming there was even any leftover). So, we’re going with visible mending. I pulled out some bright red yarn, knit up a little square and got to work.

I folded it over the edge of the cuff, covering both sides of the pull, after making sure that the “active stitches” were held in place by a stitch or two. I carefully sewed around the patch, and it’s good as new! Well, maybe not new, but it’s got plenty more life in it now.

What’s the last thing you mended?