One of the more frustrating aspects of switching from your summer to winter wardrobe is to pull out a favourite sweater, only to find it has developed a hole. Whether the damage has been caused by moths or by being snagged on something sharp, the good news is that in almost all cases, holes in knitwear can be fixed.
A stitch in time
It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with the ubiquitous lambswool, found in most knitwear, the warm and durable mohair, or merino wool, commonly used for womens Aran sweater fashions. Always fix any damage as soon as possible before it gets worse.
Repairing knitwear
If you’re lucky enough that the hole is less than half a centimetre, it can be closed with fusible bonding web. When ironed, this bonds with the fibres of the wool to fix the hole. Anything larger will need a darning technique to fix it.
The basic idea of darning is to create a woven patch that bridges the gap over the hole. By sewing some stitches in a circle close to the edge of the undamaged area, you’re then able to create horizontal stitches across the hole, through which you weave vertically to form the patch. Advanced darning techniques can replicate and continue existing patterns in the fabric, making the repair almost invisible, and can be used in nearly every type of woven fabric.
Attempting to repair a sweater that contains complex knitting patterns like those sold in specialist outlets such as Shop Aran may seem daunting. But with a history going back centuries, darning is a skill that is enjoying a resurgence in recent years, and sites like this offer some great resources on how best to approach your repair project.
So why not arm yourself with a darning needle set and give it a try? You could give that special sweater a new lease of life and at the same time, learn skills to rework other garments too. In these times, where renewing and recycling are so important, that’s no bad thing.