Darn!

 

Fast fashion is not my thing. 

My wardrobe is fairly limited and contained. No, I am not a fashion minimalist but I am a deliberate shopper. As a general rule I only go clothes shopping when I need something specific. Then I go in, find what I need and get out -- as quickly as possible. I do not bargain hunt, but rather, keep fewer items in my closet. I tend to buy classic styles that I can wear year in and year out. Where I veer from this path is in my hand made clothing. Here I will be a bit more daring as I try out patterns, often, to just learn a new skill or method of construction.

When things wear out I try to repair them but some things are not worth the time. Socks for example, I never catch my socks in the wearing out stage but only seem to realize there is a problem when a big hole has appeared. By then, the effort involved in repairing it is almost as much as the effort that goes into knitting a new pair of socks. I tried darning socks for a few months but after repairing one pair of socks only to immediately burst through them in another area, I went back to the Yarn Harlot's method of darning socks. I hold the sock over the trashcan and say "Darn!" as I drop it in.

Sweaters, however, are another story.

My son wears handknit wool sweaters 12 months of the year. Don't judge. He's an adult and knows what he needs to wear to be comfortable.

All of this wearing leads to the inevitable wear and tear. Mainly the elbows. These I mend.

The most recent victim of elbow wear is his Dust Puppy sweater. Originally knit for my husband, Dust Puppy has been around for probably about 20 years in it's current incarnation. (It was originally knit several sizes larger but Mike then lost a lot of weight and I reknit it.)

All that is to say that it's kind of surprising that the elbows are just wearing out. One sort of gave way a year or two ago and the other one I noticed just before Thanksgiving.

Usually I do my best to just duplicate stitch over the worn areas and bring them up to strength that way. I keep some left over yarn from all of my hand knits just in case I have to do a repair. Unfortunately, Dust Puppy was knit so long ago that I no longer have the yarn I made it with.

So I got creative. Follow along on my darning tutorial to see how!

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Step one, identify the worn area.

 

Step two, out line the area to be darned. Usually I use the same color yarn but, as I said, this time I got creative. I used a blackish sock weight yarn left over from a sock weight sweater. I also usually darn in a square but circles are good too!

Step 3, run "warp" lines vertically from one edge of the outline to the other. This provides a matrix for what comes later.

Fill in any gaps that seem to be too wide. (This is a personal decision.)

Step 4, duplicate stitch over as many of the encircled stitches as you can. I either work vertically or horizontally or ... both. Yup, I play fast and loose here and just go into the next stitch that feels right at the time. Use the warp threads to help you figure out where missing stitches should go.

Step 5, once you get to an area with actual missing stitches, start weaving. Using your needle, go over and under the warp threads, filling in the area until you have a nice dense patch over the sweater wound. (O.k., it looks like I didn't get those photos so please use your imagination.)

Then I got creative. Using a sparkly black sock yarn I crossed over the area, back and forth on the diameter. I started dividing it like a pizza and then kept splitting the pieces until there was no evidence of the original grey yarn.

The end result ... a mini Dust Puppy (rear view).

Thank you for joining me in my first, rather scattered, tutorial. Tune in next week for more fun!