How to Darn Holes in Sweaters and Socks
When my younger son asked me to repair his favorite sweaters recently, I had two reactions. I was really proud of him that his mindset was to repair rather than replace (and yes, it would be great if he learned to darn and make his own repairs). And, I realized it had been a while since I’d done any darning repair work. So, I did some research to refresh my memory.
I learned to darn from my thrifty grandmother, who was a deft hand at mending wool sweaters, jackets, and the ribbed knitting on collars, cuffs, and hems.
She would carefully make a blanket stitch around the inner circle of the hole being repaired, and then create a woven patch to fill in the hole. She used a darning egg, darning needle, and an embroidery thread that closely matched the item’s color. Sometimes, she was able to retrieve a piece of wool from her stash and use the leftover yarn from a sweater she’d knitted. (This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases - at no extra cost to you.)
A good tip: If you knit items as gifts, consider including some of the yarn with the gifted item for possible future use in mending, so the color, thickness, and washing instructions will match exactly.
In darning, it’s important to stabilize the unraveling, damaged area first. Then, you can take the time to shrink the hole and add stitches, or create a woven patch.
You can use a color that’s a perfect match, as close a match as possible, or not a match at all. You can try and make your repair as invisible as possible, or go in the opposite direction and create a patchworked look using contrasting colors. The style is yours to choose! Hide your stitching or showcase it - whichever 'look' makes you happy.
If you don't have knitting yarn, you can use embroidery/needlepoint thread. You’ll want to get a close and workable thickness of the yarn you’re replacing, so you’ll need to determine how many threads is equivalent to the diameter of the yarn.
Knitty has clear photos of mending projects in different stages. They also outline good tips and tricks for dealing with holes in knitted garments.
· Don't miss: How to Knit for the basics, and Knitting Videos for beginner to advanced knitting videos.
Below are 4 great instructional videos about mending knitted items from VeryPink Knits, River City Yarns, KNITFreedom, and Professor Pincushion.
Blog post screen grab via River City Yarns video.
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