A stitch in time really does save nine
And 'is that egg yolk under your arm?'
We’ve probably all heard the old adage ‘a stitch in time saves nine’. Do the thing now while the problem is small because if you wait, you’ll have a lot more work to do. If only I’d heeded this sage warning and repaired my blue Finisterre jumper when I first discovered the hole – after three winters of wear - I wouldn’t have had such a tricky time fixing it.
Instead, I saw the small hole, forgot about it and some time later put it in the wash. I launder most of my knitwear on the wool cycle in my machine which usually works fine. Not this time. That teeny, tiny hole in the underarm turned into a monstrous great gap, way too big for any of my darning mushrooms to deal with.
June might seem an odd time to write about repairing thick wool knitwear but it’s actually the perfect opportunity to check your winter clothes for holes. If you repair them now, launder and pack them away, then they’ll be ready and waiting for you when the weather cools. My experience is proof that if you don’t fix it now, you might forget about the damage and it could be a lot harder to mend further down the line.
This underarm hole is definitely one of the more complicated repairs I’ve worked on. I did this darn some time ago and I’ve recently noticed a hold under the other arm. I will be 100% sure to repair it before I wash it or wear it again.
How I did this repair:
Before I could fully darn this hole, I had to perform some structural surgery by tacking part of it together with thread. Then I could start to make sense of the damage.
I’m not a knitter so it was tricky to work out how to approach it. Because of the design – with no seam under the arm - I had to darn it from various angles, in sections.
First I darned the warp and then wove the weft. I haven’t taken detailed photos but if you look at the photo below, of the finished darn on the inside of the jumper, you can get a sense of how I had to work it from different directions.
Sometimes the most interesting photos of a repair can be on the inside as they show the work that’s gone into the mending.
Mending kit for this repair:
Yellow DMC Crafts tapestry wool (a bit more mustard than it appears in these photos)
Large darning needle
Snips / scissors
Darning aid - I used a ladle because the hole was too big for my darning mushrooms!
Thread for tacking
Sewing needle
I absolutely love this colour combination – it’s certainly very visible. The first time my sister saw it, I hadn’t mentioned the repair, and she commented that I looked like I had a egg yolk under my arm!
[Full disclosure: I was gifted this jumper about eight years ago by Finisterre. It was not on the proviso that I wrote about it, or that I review their products favourably. This is not a sponsored post.]
What’s coming up this week:
My mending pile: a small hole has formed in the side of my left Hylo trainer so I’m planning to get that fixed before it gets worse.
What I’ve bought: I was lucky enough to find a stash of lovely tapestry wool in a charity shop. I’m looking forward to trying them out sometime soon.
Next week on The Mending Kit: I’m going to try to post about my trainer repair - it’ll be a good incentive to get it done!
Want to read some more of my posts about darning? You can find them here: Darns from The Mending Kit.
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