SweaterHemming -tutorial

I bought this wonderful Devold 100 % wool sweater from Svalbard, Norway in 2018. That means 8 yrs ago. I also bought that Svalbard-Longyearbye -badge I sew on the sleeve. This sweater has been in "all year around" -use and very dear to me. Now the hems of its right sleeve has started to worn out. (I am right handed.) There are signs of it also in the left sleeve and trunk hem too. That's why I have been thinking how to fix it because otherwise the sweater is still in perfect fit.

Instead of patching I decided to use crocheting. I used simple crochet stitch. It is easy to make also for the beginners and it fades well into the knitting. If the hem has already broken yarns, make sure you make your crochet stitch far enough to make sure you catch everything. You get it very neat when you crochet each stitch equal distance, according to the deepest point your yarn has been broken.

At the end -like in my case- even the new yarn would be different shade, it fits in well. I could have used also white yarn, but I didn't want to. there are different shades of whites too and because the other shade is red I was afraid of the new white would not hide the red under the white so well. Make sure you choose as similar quality of yarn as possible compared to the original sweater. You can go seeking it wearing the sweater. 💕

On the tutorial video above you can see and learn how to make it. It really is FashionNOW. It also saves your personal time, energy and money... not to mention the PlanetEarth. I bet this makes your favorite sweater even dearer because now you fix it yourself and created a new memory!

PatchingPullover

I have a very old industrially made pullover. When I bought it on sale, it was a bit too big for me because it was men's size despite small. I have been using it and loved it. Now the wrist parts and elbows have worn out with tiny holes in the structure. With the wrists I just cut off the extra and fold it again. Now the length of the sleeves is actually the right. The elbow parts I first patched and then hide the patching by embroidery. This is FashionNOW.

OMG

My colleague at work faced a horrible disaster last spring. She had put her French cardigan to hang outside to make the air to clean the wool. That is how you clean woolen garments. You put them outside to air and they get clean! This time she noticed someone had ate her beautiful cardigan! At the end she found out it was birds who had started nesting and needed something warm to build their nest. We both agree there must be very romantic baby girl tits in the world now! Princess like. She asked if I could do anything with the holes.

Well, I can always patch them. For the patching I used DMC stranded cotton embroidery thread. To make it more firm and not stretching. I wanted to create a base for something. See...

The cardigan had hang from the hanger on which the tits hand been sitting and peck fibers out from the garment. That's why both shoulders had faced the disaster but no other parts. 

To hide the patching I did some freehand embroidery over the shoulders.

It is mohair cardigan so I used mohair yarn for the embroidery. In this way she could at least wear it at home and cottage. But she liked it and is going to use it at work again.

This is FashionNOW. And also preserving memories. It was a gift she had received from a very important person in her life.

Notice: I have made a small Patching Wool -tutorial in 2014!

HeelPartPatching

For Yule 2024 YoungLady didn't receive any new pair of woollen socks. Instead she received the old patched ones. Her AAW Fair Isle Socks No4 faced a cat catastrophe and she was very sad about it but still loves her cats.

I could easily have just cut off the foot part of the sock and just knit a new one. The problem was, the socks were still in perfect fit. Someone had just chew it in the darkest hours during the night while she was sleeping. I didn't want to waste the material. That´s why I chose the most difficult option. I decided to mend it. That's why I need to use the same method I showed you in ToePart -tutorial. Now I just needed to stay in the middle of everything without cutting off anything.

So, I just (haha, not only just) started to climb up by knitting the hole to be closed. I needed some extra yarn to be able to do so. On the edges I used needle to fasten the side stitches to the new knitted row. So, I didn't knit from a yarn ball but from a long piece of yarn which I was able to pull through the stitches. For that I used the duplicate stitching method.

At the end I need to make sure everything is ok and fastened to something in the way it won't unravel itself. If you really use the woollen socks in your daily life the inside of it like felts quite soon. So, my only concern was to get it all stay in together until the felting begins. When the inside surface starts to felt, it is very difficult to get anything unravel. 

This is how it looks finished. Not perfect, not like the original one. But this was one of my most difficult wool patching project and I spent hours doing it. It was difficult because of the place the chewing appeared: the lowest part of the leg (ankle) and the uppermost part of the heel. In the same time I could have just cut the foot part off and knit a new one. Instead I chose FashionNOW. YoungLady is very happy for it and the whole project. She really appreciates I did this and all the trouble I had for it.

NewStripes

Oh what a worn out the striped socks have faced during the years. I could have just darn it but the damages were quite huge at whole soles. The leg parts were still quite ok so I decided to knit new feet parts for them. I just cut off the feet and heel parts and picked up the stitches on needles. 

Then I knit new heels and feet parts. White and grey are the same shade as the original ones. The blue is new but matches well. I used Novita's 7 Veljestä (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m) yarn. The original pair is made of Novita's Tuomas yarn (100g = 189m) (40% wool, 35% acrylic and 25% polyamide).

By knitting just the new feet for the socks I saved my own time and the nature resources! 

OopsLoops

What a beautiful woollen pullover. Unfortunately not mine. And more sad; it's broken! One yarn snapped down and two loops running away! If you look carefully you can see one loop is on the hook. And under it is a knot! I was able to catch the ends of the snapped yarn and tie them together. Then I collected the loops and actually crocheted them together. Not so common way to patch wool...

Hardly visible at front side but a huge risk in the structure.

Then I secured it all...

...and no one will notice. My friend will be happy! :)

Patching wool -tutorial

Perhaps the most difficult thing in patching wool is to find matching shade if you want to make it as invisible as possible.

I had to make it invisible because he had lean at something sharp that had torn a hole to the upper back part of his woollen pullover. I don't need to say it was almost brand new...

Start with fastening the yarn without knots. Take it under fibres for about 5cm to one direction and then back.

If there really is a hole in the wool you need to make help rows for patching. Take the yarn from right to left and back as many times as needed. Go from down to up or opposite. Meaning that these right-left running threads should form like ladders.

Create new knitted surface by using these right-left running thread ladders. Use chain stitches. The chain goes from down to up and formes similar surface like knitting. You can use as many chains as needed. But if the hole is big you need to fasten the chains to the ones on its both sides. You will do just fine. See how it goes on the knitted surface and copy / reproduce it.

Only when the patching is done take away the untidy loose ends and other messy things from the right side. Do not cut anything!

Use a small hook to pull the thread ends to the other side.

This is how it looks finished. Not invisible but don't get frustrated. It will smooth down and get more invisible in use. The life itself will fade it more.

Fasten the remaning end of the yarn.

Fasten it to another direction that you did on the begin.

So that these start and end points won't make the patched part look more thick.