April 26, 2006
i'm fixing a hole...

A reader has asked what to do about moth holes in hand knits. Any suggestions?

Restoring it, I think, is possible, even if it is the tedious sort of thing you do almost surgically, under very bright lights.

Renovation may be an easier path. How would you do it?

Comments

if it's feltable, you could try remaking it into something else entirely...a bag is what my sleeveless red sweater will become.

I do quite a bit of sweater repairs. Basically you duplicate stitch over air where the stitches should be. Start a few sts to right of hole, work sts leading towards hole via duplicate stitch, create new sts over hole, work a few sts to left of hole. Repeat for every row. Mary Thomas has a nice section on darning holes. Its an old fashioned skill~ mainly for mending socks etc way back when. I doubt our foremothers would spend close to $20 for sock yarn then discard them when they were all holey. But we, who live in a throw away economy and view sock knitting as a diversion instead of necessity, seem to devalue our work by not mending it.

Applique. Or make more holes, on purpose, for a kind of punk lace.

if it's a plain sweater i like to embroider over mothholes. sometimes i'll cover the entire sweater with a repeating geometric or swirly pattern if there are lots of holes in random places. if it is just one hole it might only need a little whale or something as a utilitarian decoration. really it depends on where the hole is.
i'm not sure what i would do if it was on a busy patterned sweater! let's hope that never happens.
and hey - thanks for your comment on my crochetme.com pattern!

Particularly for store-bought sweaters with small gauge, I end up crocheting an edge around the hole (sometimes cutting the hole to make it larger first) and then inserting crocheted shapes inside. I make sure to use a constrasting thread for maximum effect (brown with neon blue, etc).

if the hole is smallish, an easy solution is needlefelting a bit of yarn or fibre in and around it. could be decorative or not.

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