Several days ago my son handed me his favorite sweater. There was a hole. He knows to pay attention to such things as soon as they appear but this was near his elbow, he’s a very active fellow, and he didn’t notice it until it had grown . . . well, you see.
I didn’t make the sweater though it was hand knit. A stranger from whom he bought a tractor gave it to him a few years ago because he happened to have it in his car and he thought it would fit my son.
So yesterday, with the late afternoon sun streaming in the studio window (a person needs good light for such projects), I started poking at it. Fixing something like this is simply solving a series of small problems . . . asking “Ok, what should I do now?” over and over.
And after an hour or maybe two, it looked like this:
Notice that there is no purple pattern where there used to be one. I figured no one was going to stop her or his white horse to see if it was there.
It’s not perfect. The sweater is sun-faded in many places, but it’s his favorite. Last winter I cut off its raggedy, stretched cuffs and knitted new ones. It will get more holes and I will fix them until it’s too threadbare to hold together. Because this is what we do in my family. We fix old things that can still have a useful life.
Other than that, I’m pretty much in a flurry of class preparation for the upcoming cruise. These are 5 new classes I’m teaching. I’m enjoying the process . . . and figuring out how I might share them with all of you who weren’t able to join us. But that’s in the future. There’s this other set of raggedy, stretched cuffs to replace . . .
And this sweater I did make.
I need help fixing an unusual vertical hole in a heavy sweater. I have not been able to live in my house for almost 8 months since a fire in the basement caused structural damage. I can and do go there for short periods of time to pack up things for the apartment I had to move to. The last time I was there, I noticed my heavy Icelandic sweater on the floor. I bought the yarn in Iceland then knitted the sweater a year or 2 later. It had apparently fallen off the chair it was draped over. There is a lot of evidence of mouse damage in the house and I believe the 3″ long vertical holes in the sweater were caused by mice. I looked this up and found out that mice don’t eat wool but gather it for their nests. I found a bag with the left over yarn from the sweater and there is a whole skein and a smaller ball of the matching color. I know how to reweave a horizontal hole but I am concerned that the heavy yarn will make a bump on each side of the hole. Most of the damage is 1 or 2 stitches wide, though there are some thin spots in the yarn on the sides of the holes that probably should be reinforced in some way. Please send me some suggestions for saving one of my favorite sweaters. Where the damage is 2 stitches wide, I don’t think I can repair the hole with thread on the reverse side.
As a child of Depression Era parents, the ideals of “reduce, reuse, recycle” were planted deep. Our society has changed significantly; it was refreshing to read this saga of your son’s sweater! I learned & loved sewing in the ’60s & ’70s, but only began knitting in MY 60s in 2013 (& just recently came across your YouTubes)! I could write a book about my experiences these last 4+ years of knitting! Maybe someday I could add a chapter about meeting & learning from an wonderful Lady & artist like you…especially on an Alaskan cruise!! I’ve started filling a special piggy bank in anticipation of such an adventure in my near-future!?!
That would be lovely Kamela. My parents were married in August, 1929, so they were definitely Depression Era. I didn’t come along until 1947 but the value was still there. We always had enough based on a big family sharing what we had. I never think of it as deprivation so much as respect for the earth and its resources. I hate, for example, to waste food. I made the decision long ago to live lightly on the land. As a North American I have way more than most people in the world, but my standard of living is very modest by the standards I see around me.
Great patch job!Nice to see people still mend and fix instead of toss.We have become a waisteful society.
Thanks for your letter and a catch-up on your summer so far.I live in Okotoks a smallish city south of Calgary.We also farm about 30 min.from here.Our part of the province had been under a heat wave which is fine and don’t like to complain,but we were getting concerned about our crops.Thankfully we got a most appreciated downfall of rain and crops should be able to plump up.We are truly grateful for that.
As for my knitting project which is a kind of sort of open/lace afghan has been put aside for a bit just to warm to work on when the heat is on.
My tomatoes are doing good,and a free short rows of spuds and carrots a doingvthere thing.So if my daughter’s MRI results come back aokay we are truly and profoundly blessed!!!!
Love all your videos or YouTube I’m not that savvy about to much technology but please keep it coming.Sorry to be so long winded just nice to talk and stay in touch with people.Thanks Geri
I’m so glad you got some good rain. I envy your tomatoes. It has been so cold here this summer that mine are not happy. It’s especially cold at night. Good tomatoes are among the things I miss most from Michigan where I grew up. It was good to hear from you.
I love reading your posts Cheryl! This one was of particular interest to me. When you say you picked at it, did you just pick of ragged ends and tie knots or try to weave it or did you introduce new wool into the back of the elbow? I have a sweater with a complex pattern that I made 20 years ago and love BUT managed to slice a 3 inch straight line across the front – an egregious letter opener incident – as soon as I figured out what I’d done, I took the sweater off but I don’t have any wool scraps left to repair it with (hand dyed home spun) by weaving into the back side of the actual sweater, How best to approach this? Take it to my local knitting store expert? It’s on the front so I fear mangling it badly. Do you have a video that we can all see??? 🙃
Oh, yikes. This is a nasty one. JC’s sweater is sun-bleached. The green on the inside is brighter than that on the outside but I just happened to have some Harrisville tweed (from about 30+ years ago) that matched the faded color perfectly. In a case like yours, one option might be to cut off the bottom rib or the cuffs and steal a few yards to do the repair. Once you cut it off you can reknit it downward which is what I’ve done for the brown sweater in the bottom photo.
I answered an email to Kate this morning when she asked how I had done it. Here was my answer: “It’s hard to explain because each hole is different and you have to make decisions every step of the way but you start at the bottom, the place where you can pick up all intact sts, and work upward from there. For every row I broke a new piece of yarn, started about 3 sts to the right of the hole and did duplicate stitch on the good stitches, then I “knit” across the row using a tapestry needle going through the live sts below and around a short double pointed needle. Then I did several duplicate sts at the left of the hole and did the next row the same way. When I got to the top I did grafting. I have a video on that.”
It sounds like you have just one row, maybe two, that need to be rebuilt. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work, but it’s definitely not working now. Good luck.
Ellen, Cheryl made a good suggestion: if it is only one row, you can pull out that one row (the sweater will now be separated) and graft it back together. No one will miss ONE row.
Or you can find some yarn that is close enough to blend (even if it doesn’t match perfectly) and do a repair that way. It is a shame to not enjoy your sweater because of a simple tear in it! Heck, even it I used a different colour entirely, I’d fix it and wear it with pride!
What a terrific job, and you didn’t have any of the spare yarn used in the original project! Thank you for sharing, it’s encouraging!
Haha Pamela, that is one of the benefits of having a large stash — you can always find yarn of the type and colour you need!! Yes, that’s my reasoning — and I’m sticking to it!!
Cheryl, thank you for that share different useful knitting secrets. I am always very happy to read your posts and watch videos on YouTube and learning a lot. Thank you for what you are doing is very valuable!
With a sinking heart, always read about the cruise. with all my heart I’ll be with you in the trip. Tell me, please, whether can be a video from the trip, it would be very interesting, let it be short, or photos too!
wish you the cruise took place better than you expect and everything goes as planned!
I admire you so much. You are a great knitter. I wish I could have some lessons with you, may be if you come to Mexico someday.
Gracias Consuelo. I spent many winters in Baja, but I don’t travel so much there any more.
That’s an admirable fix. I give instructions with my hand-knitted socks, they must be returned when a thin spot appears. Duplicate stitching is easier for me than filling a hole. My son is very diligent because he wants to keep those socks coming.
Thanks Marilyn. I love your cautionary note to return them when a thin spot appears. My son is usually more diligent but he was traveling for 2 weeks and his adventures included playing with youth at a family camp in the Santa Cruz mountains. By the time he got home it was pretty ragged, as you saw.
He did give it to me right away once he got home, however.
Cheryl, I’m new to your post and to knitting and I have to say, your post do speak to my heart. I’m so lucky to have found you.
Thank you Eileen, and welcome.
Good job…
I do like it when the item to be repaired comes to me when it is still in its “Stage 1″ of need as opposed to those at ‘Stage 4 or 6”. Although, when the surgery has been completed on an advanced case of damage… it can be quite satisfying to look at a once again fully usable item .. and its happy owner/user.
Thanks Jean. Yes. I usually subscribe to the “A stitch in time saves nine” philosophy.
You are a true wizard! It couldn’t look any more perfect, in my humble opinion.
Thanks Nancy. It’s a bit wonky on the left hand side because that was where there were increases going up the sleeve, right next to the seam. I started with 6 sts picked up on the black row just below the first green row and did 3 increases on the left side to end with 9 sts to weave into the top, intact knitting.
A little wonky adds character. A well loved garment needs character. I guess if it comes to it you can do elbow patches eventually. I really don’t like buying new clothes when the ones I have are comfortable and I don’t care if they’re out of style. I expect I’ll need to learn to make more repairs in my knitting as time goes by. I’ve only been knitting for five years or so.
Thanks. Your fixes are very encouraging. I tell everyone I knit for, if it gets a hole bring it back so I can fix it. I’ve patched up my own socks but none I’ve given away seemt o have holes yet. I’ve not had anything else come back for mending yet, but I’m sure it will happen.
What a great service to offer! Mending things you’ve made for people. I can fix most any stockinette or garter pattern but I’m not very experienced with complicated lace. I’m guessing there are things out there that would baffle me.
Baffled is not synonymous with beaten. You’d rise to the challenge. I’m frequently amazed at what I can accomplish; if I had your experience and skill level who knows what I could do. I managed to insert an “afterthought” shell on an afghan I crocheted when I saw the omission on one of the first rows; I was about halfway through the project. I’m not sure I’d find that fix easily. Yes, I’ll gladly tell people I create learning experiences.
For the record, I’m not envious of your abilities. I just wish I’d been able to learn to knit years earlier but I cannot knit English style well even now and that was the only way anything I could find demonstrated. I don’t come from a family of knitters either. I’m really quite pleased with what I can do and you encourage me.
You are beyond awesome! Incredibly talented lady. thank you for sharing.
Ellen
Thank you Ellen. You are very kind. I don’t see it as talent so much as just a lot of years practicing a skill and patience.
Yep. You fix until fixin aint possible anymore. Do this with the commercial socks my husband prizes beyond all understanding. I told him “handmade last longer” and offered to knit him some socks from acrylic yarn because they don’t make his feet sweat like cotton does and he could wear them in summer as the wool ones are too hot for his feet.
Waiting for a reply!
I think it’s wonderful that you “fix old things that can still have a useful life”. There’s a lot of seniors out there with aches and pains that wish you could fix them too! We’ve got to recycle more, waste less, and stop being such consumers. Enjoy your cruise.
My last husband had a donation thrift store for years. I still buy very little new except underwear and shoes and socks, though I may have to pop for some new clothes for the cruise so that I can look like a grown-up lady.