Copyright Joy Beeson Permission granted to download and print this file for your personal use. If you want to share it, ask. Mending Hand Knits: YARN: Darning wool is no longer available, so you will have to use embroidery wool. Persian wool is good for darning worsted-weight knits, and for replacing fingering-weight that's missing altogether. DMC makes a very fine embroidery wool they call "Medici;" it's a bit hard and tight, but it's the only easily-available wool fine enough to reinforce Persian and darn factory-knit fabrics. Multiple strands of Medici make a flatter darn than a single strand of a heavier yarn. Some yarns spun for warp are strong enough to darn with; if you know a weaver, ask him to save selected thrums -- the waste bits of yarn that are left when fabric is cut off a loom are plenty long enough for darning and embroidery. Since darning uses up thread faster than sewing or embroidery, you may need to use longer pieces of yarn than you would ordinarily. When using an over-long thread, keep the yarn and its tail about the same length, to minimize tiresome reaching. This also forces you to shift the needle every few stitches, which reduces the tendency for the yarn to wear through where it's folded. If the yarn tends to twist and snarl, you can combine needle- shifting with dangling: drop the needle, and wait until it stops spinning. Then unfold the tail, drop it straight, and wait until that stops spinning. Then push the needle down half an inch -- more if you are taking very large stitches -- and resume work. If you are using silk thread, the needle may fall off when dangled. If so, push the needle clear to the fabric, then stroke the thread between your fingers to push twist off the end. TOOLS: Long "darning needles" are for mending woven fabric, and are not suitable for darning knitwear. Use a short, blunt- pointed needle with a long eye, just thick enough to make a hole that your doubled mending yarn can pass through easily. Canvas embroidery is the most common use for needles of this type, so they are called "Tapestry needles." Look for them in most of the places that sell hand-sewing needles. Sharp-pointed needles of the same type are sometimes useful, particularly when the yarn isn't wool, but your usual goal will be to encase the worn strands without piercing them. If you darn with plant fiber or synthetic, it's a good idea to switch to a sharp-pointed needle for securing the ends. Wool ends will hold when merely slipped under the network of darning. Work proceeds much more easily if the fabric is stretched over a hard, smooth, curved surface. An object put under a worn spot to provide this surface is called a "darning egg", because the most common type is an egg-shaped piece of wood mounted on a handle. The handle doubles as a darning surface for glove fingers. The handles of knives and kitchen tools have also been used as darning eggs in glove fingers. Rock shops sell egg-shaped stones in assorted sizes, and craft shops sell wooden and plastic eggs. At Easter time, you can buy hollow eggs that double as a place to store your needle and yarn. Some vending-machine containers are a useful size and shape. Real eggs have been pressed into service -- it's considered wise to boil them first, in case a cat catches her claw in the work, panics, and dashes across the floor smashing the egg against walls and furniture. It was a hundred-watt light bulb that met this fate. Light bulbs are just the right size and shape to darn a stocking heel, and are always handy, but if the cat is around, light bulbs in my socks make me nervous. My grandmother used a small gourd that has a finger- sized neck and a bulbous bottom. I find my nest of cylinder-shaped stainless-steel mixing bowls handy when darning bicycle tights. Look around. BUTTONHOLE STITCH DARNING After much experiment, I have concluded that the best way to darn knitting is to work interlocking rows of buttonhole stitch, also called "blanket stitch". (Mildred Graves Ryan calls this "point de venise darning".) A buttonhole darn is elastic, it covers the weakened fibers on both sides, and it can be tapered by working larger stitches on the sounder parts of the fabric. If a mitten keeps wearing through at the same spot, one darn can be worked over another without making lumps. When filling holes, it can be worked over horizontal strands thrown across the hole, and will cover any vertical or odd-angled strands you have used to stabilize the shape of the hole. You don't have to cut away odd shreds, but can buttonhole them into the darn. This helps in "feathering" the edges of the hole. Rows of buttonhole should be straight, even when the hole is round -- curved rows pucker. Usually, I work parallel to the cross grain, but buttonholing also works on the vertical grain. Vertical and horizontal patches of darning co-exist peacefully. Sometimes it's a good idea to work a darn that just fills in the hole, making the stitches loose enough to match the thin fabric around the hole, and then work a reinforcing darn over the entire area. Or one can work a very loose darn as permanent basting to hold a large hole in shape while serious darning is done. If the mitten or stocking is light in color, a water- erasable marker (sold in sewing, embroidery, and quilting shops) can help you to keep your stitching straight. Before starting to darn, mark carefully along rows of stitches spaced about half an inch apart -- or more, or less, according to the situation. If you are having a lot of trouble, or want to be particularly fussy, you can weave a smooth sewing thread through a row of stitches to serve as a guide. Since you are working with a blunt needle that doesn't pierce threads, the contrast thread can be pulled out after you work over it. Or use a silk thread and leave it in. Where the fabric is thinner, you'll need to make smaller stitches. This means that you'll usually need more stitches and rows in the middle than you need around the edges. This, in turn, means that you'll have to increase, decrease, and make short rows even if you never darn a curved surface. To increase, work two stitches in one stitch. If this seems inclined to pull a hole, make the second stitch longer, and catch it in the previous row. Or you can make one stitch over the thread only, and catch the fabric in the other stitch. To decrease, skip over a stitch. Try to keep the stitches uniform. If a narrower-than-average stitch in the previous row presents itself, skip that one. Stitch as close as possible to the skipped stitch when working into the stitches before and after it, so that the stitch which spans the skipped stitch is as narrow as possible. This stitch will be wider than average anyway, but the extra width will be divided between two stitches when you work the next row. (Since every stitch spans half of each of two stitches in the previous row, irregularities tend to average themselves out.) To turn a short row, make the last stitch less tall than average, then put the needle down where you would if you were making another stitch, and bring it up where you would have put it down in the next stitch. This causes the top line of the row to dive down into the top line of the previous row. Another plan is to slip the yarn under the top line of the stitch you would have stitched in, then slip it under the bar between that stitch and the next, and out under the top line. If you don't want to begin the next short row from where you are, slide the thread under the stitches, as if hiding an end, and end by going down in one stitch and coming up in the next. (Or by exiting under the top line.) Try to make your first exercise in darning the covering of a weakness that you have caught so early that you can work a uniform net, thin enough not to have a definite edge, over the entire thin spot and a bit of the sound fabric around it. TO COVER A THINNING SPOT IN BUTTONHOLE: Begin by weaving the yarn up a stockinet column the same way you hide an end when knitting: down in one stitch and up in the next. Subsequent beginnings should be secured by sliding them under a row of buttonhole stitches, between the darn and the fabric. If you want to get an end out of your way immediately, instead of weaving it into the darn as suggested below, weave it over and under stitches like the first beginning. This disposal is particularly suitable when you have worked the end down too short to thread into a needle: weave the needle, _then_ thread it. If a short end gives you fits, use a crochet hook to pull it in. It's usually easier to use the needle, but "usually" isn't "always". If the darn is stretched parallel to a hidden end, the end will pull back into waves and be less inclined to restrict the stretch of the fabric. It is rare for an end to get felted into place before it gets stretched, so you don't have to worry much about ends that are slid in after the stitches are made. When stitches are worked over a yarn, the yarn is less inclined to slip, and when both ends of the yarn are secured before stitches are worked over it, as sometimes happens when padding threads are thrown across a hole, you definitely restrict the stretch of the fabric. Whether working over a yarn is good, bad, or indifferent depends on the stretch of the yarn, the stretch of the piece being repaired, and the size of the darn. Try to put your ends where they will do some good. You usually should work on the right side. The side next to the darning egg is smoother and more suitable for wearing next to the skin. The side that is uppermost when you are darning has more yarn in it, and is suitable for taking wear. If the wear came from the inside of the garment -- perhaps from a ring or an orthopedic device -- turn it inside out, and darn on the side where the wear is. I'm going to describe the darn as if the rows were horizontal and the fabric vertical. Turn it to the most- convenient angle. Right-handers will probably want "up" to slant away and to the left. Come up below the worn spot and a little to its right, and work over a row of stitches, right to left. Use the knitting as a guide to make your embroidery stitches uniform and square, about as high as they are wide. (Making them narrower without making them shorter is one way to thicken the middle of a row, but square is the best shape for working a net over an area.) When you are a little to the left of the thin spot, end the row by putting the needle down where you would have brought it up in making the next stitch. That is, the last loop is secured by a short straight stitch that ends where the next loop would have had its corner. Bring the needle up in the right place to begin the next row. This stitch is about half as long as the stitches you have been making, so it's easy to begin the next row too high. If the previous row was a trifle too long, begin by working into the last loop. If the previous row was a trifle too short, work into the straight stitch securing the last loop as if it were the top of a stitch Use the columns of knit stitches as a guide for making the side edges straight, unless you have a reason to make them some other shape. Try to keep the underneath stitches vertical. Work back left to right, turn in the same way, and continue until your thread gets short. When changing threads in ornamental buttonhole, one leaves the last stitch unfinished, and later weaves the end through the first stitch of the new thread to give the illusion of an unbroken thread. This is both inconvenient and undesirable in darning, where the ends are woven in on the right side. Temporarily secure the old end by taking a stitch well above the darn, unless you have worked the end down so short that leaving it flopping doesn't bother you. Slide the new thread under the row below the last row of darning, then take a stitch that comes up in the same place where the old end comes up, and continue darning. When you have worked a row, thread the old end into a needle and slide it under the second row from the edge, which is now the row above the row where you secured the new thread. If you need to work past the old end, slip the needle under it to avoid nailing it down prematurely. Though working over a thread reduces the stretch of a darn, a hole fills in so much faster when the stitches are padded that it is often worth it. You can throw a short yarn across the hole before each row, weaving the ends well to both sides of the hole, you can take advantage of ends that need hiding, or you can stitch across in one direction and strand back. This last appeals particularly to people who buttonhole more easily in one direction than in the other. Another approach is to first stabilize the shape of the hole with a loose network or a zig-zag of yarns, and work over them as you come to them. All these methods can be combined, of course. OTHER DARNS AND PATCHES FOR HAND KNITS: An inconspicuous darn is to embroider rows of chain stitch up the columns of stitches. This does not reinforce worn fabric, but will protect new fabric from abrasion -- in the spot where a rough gear-shift lever hits the thumb of a mitten, for example. You can cover or replace a strand of yarn by duplicate stitch or grafting. Since this is tedious work, it's usually done only when the damaged area is small and the garment is particularly valuable. Duplicate stitch is a good "save" when you notice a defect in the yarn after completing the work. Break a short piece of yarn by pulling fibers, as for splicing, and put the middle over the weak spot, then darn away from it in both directions. (Use a crochet hook when the ends get too short for a needle.) The tapered tails will blend imperceptably into the original yarn. If the yarn is untreated wool, this repair will become more firmly attached and harder to see with wear and washing. You can duplicate stitch up to a hole and work nalbinding across it, if you have allowed something that is worth that much effort to wear into holes. Like grafting, nalbinding is duplicate stitch over stitches that aren't there. It will be much easier if you put in vertical threads to work around. Use Medici or silk sewing thread for the vertical threads so that you don't have to take them out afterward. Weave up a column of stitches as if securing an end, skip over the hole,then weave into the exact same column on the other side. A magnifying glass can be a big help in identifying the exact same column. Weaving a thread through the intact column on each side of the hole also helps. Some people knit patches, by picking up live stitches at the bottom of the hole and grafting at the top. The sides can be sewn, or secured by pulling the frayed yarns through the stitches. (The turning yarn that spans from one row to the next is a good place to link.) Weave the frayed ends into the old fabric, to reinforce it. It may be a good idea to wrap the turning yarns around a smooth thread, to make it easier to find the place to link the worn yarns through. I've never encountered a hole for which a knitted patch was suitable, so this description is not from experience. When the end of a finger, the toe of a sock, the cuff of a sleeve, or some other extremity becomes worn, it's often suitable to ravel it out and re-knit it. Sometimes the original yarn can be re-used for the repair. Wash it first, to relax the kinks. Overlap the frayed ends, instead of cutting them off and joining. If the extremity was knitted the other way, and won't unravel from its beginning, snip one thread at the spot where you want to divide the fabric, and pick it out all the way around. The piece that falls off usually can be unraveled from this side, if you need to incorporate the original yarn into the repair. MENDING FACTORY KNITS BASEBALL-STITCH DARNING A frequent failure in cut-and-sewn garments is fabric that has worn away along a seam. In addition to wearing through at the fold, the allowances are often encased in a sharp, hard line of overlock stitches. This ridge under the fabric may serve as an anvil on which the fabric can be worn away. One way to repair such a seam is to re-stitch the seam with baseball stitch, spaced closely enough to overcast both raw edges. Since this seam is very flat, it has little tendency to wear away. (In some references, baseball stitch is called "antique seam" because it was used for construction in the days when fabric was so valuable that allowing it to wear away at the seams was unthinkable, and so narrow that you were apt to have seams in places where lumps and ridges are intolerable.) First cut away the seam allowances, not only where they have worn free of the main fabric, but into the sound fabric on either side. (Baseball stitch is easy to work next to a previous patch of baseball stitch, so you needn't be fanatical about preventing future failure.) Choose a thread that harmonizes with your fabric. Secure the thread very thoroughly if it is synthetic, merely hide the end if it is wool, take intermediate precautions with silk and cotton. Sliding the thread through a overlocked seam is a good way to hide an end; taking back stitches in the overcasting is a good way to secure an end. Begin stitching a little above the break, stitching toward the seam from both sides so that the stitches interdigitate across the seam. ..PICTURE NEEDED HERE When you get to the break, let each stitch come up in the gap, so that the edges are overcast and held together by a figure eight, and the crossing of the threads in the gap prevents the edges from over-riding one another. Stitch beyond the end the same way you stitched before the beginning, and hide or secure the end. If there is a small gap, fill it with one or more vertical threads and weave over them. An odd number of threads requires you to modify your baseball stitch by coming up in the gap on one side and going down into the gap on the other side. End of excerpt from _Rough Sewing_.