Craft
Mending a moth-eaten sweater with flowers
Three holes, a box of leftover wool and a few quiet evenings. Visible mending turned a sweater I nearly threw away into my favourite one.
Clara Whitfield2 min read
The moths found my cream sweater sometime over the summer. When I took it out in September there were three holes across the front, each about the size of a fingernail, and my first thought was that it was finished.
My second thought, a few days later, was that I had nothing to lose. If a repair went wrong, the sweater was already ruined. That freedom is the best thing about visible mending: you stop trying to hide the damage and start decorating it.
What you need
- A blunt tapestry needle with an eye big enough for wool.
- Leftover yarn roughly the same weight as the sweater. Contrast is the point, so do not worry about matching.
- Something round to stretch the fabric over while you work. A jam jar or an orange works fine.
The method, roughly
- Stabilise each hole first. Run a few stitches around its edge into the healthy knit so it cannot grow.
- Fill the hole with a small woven patch, going over and under in both directions.
- Embroider over the patch. I used lazy daisy stitches for the petals and a tight cluster of French knots for each centre.
- Add a few extra flowers where there were no holes at all, so the repairs look like a pattern rather than a rescue.
Each flower took about an evening. I did them slowly, in front of the radio, and by the end I had stopped thinking of it as a repair. It is the sweater people ask about now, and the one I reach for first.
