It takes quite some time to knit a hat, a sweater, a pair of socks and pretty much any other project. So it hurts to throw our knits away only because it’s got a hole, especially when a hole sneaks into our favourite garment or accessory.
Whether the hole appeared because the fabric got snagged, cut, burned or chewed up by a moth, we can repair any hole – big or small – when we use the invisible mending method described in this tutorial.
This way of fixing holes in knitted fabric forms an invisible patch that blends seamlessly into the area around it. It does take some time and effort, but not nearly as much as the time and effort we spend to make a replacement for the damaged project.
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Let’s see how we can heal our knits step by step.
SETUP
Place the area with the hole on a flat surface (the “operating table”) so that the right side of the fabric is facing you and the cast on edge is at the bottom.
It is not necessary to have the cast on edge actually lying on the operating table. What matters is that the fabric is lined up along the direction of knitting.
If you can’t determine where the cast on edge is, place the fabric so that the columns of stitches are vertical. The mending is usually neater when we mend along the direction of knitting, but going the other way also works.
Stretch the hole a bit to better see the stitches. Then remove the bits of strands and unravel partial stitches to open a set of intact stitches at the very bottom of the hole.
Do the same to the set of stitches at the top of the hole.
Make sure that each open stitch at the bottom has a corresponding open stitch at the top. Also, look for partial stitches at the sides of the hole.
Our aim is to turn an uneven hole into a clean rectangle or square with open stitches at the top and the bottom with sides lined by full stitches trimmed by small tails of unravelled yarn.
If any damaged stitch is outside this rectangle, unravel it and the stitches linked to it to expand the frame of the rectangle.
Don’t worry if the rectangle gets bigger than the hole itself. With this kind of mending, the size of the rectangle doesn’t matter. It is more important to make sure it has clean edges.
Push the tails at the sides of the rectangle to the back of the fabric. Starting with the stitch on the left, insert a knitting needle from front to back into each open stitch at the bottom of the hole.
If you remember the size of the needles you used to make this project, use a needle that is one size smaller than that size.
If you don’t know the original size of the needles, use a needle in a size that allows you to enter the stitch with ease, but that is not too thin to freely slide inside the stitches.
Cut a long piece of yarn (preferably the same yarn as was used to knit this project) and thread it into a wool needle. To make it easier for you to see how this method works, I’ll use a piece of yarn in a contrasting colour.
It is difficult to tell how long this piece of yarn should be because each hole is different. To be on the safe side, cut the yarn that is longer than the length that you feel will be enough to re-knit the fabric inside the rectangle.
It took us some time to prepare the hole for mending. Now we get to an easier and quicker part – mending itself.
MENDING
STEP 1
Insert the wool needle from right to left under both legs of a stitch that is at the right side of the first open stitch at the bottom of the rectangle. Pull the yarn through leaving a tail around 10cm / 4″ long.
STEP 2
Take the needle with the open stitches in your left hand and an empty needle of the same size in your left hand.
Use the yarn inserted into the wool needle as your working yarn and work all open stitches in the pattern of your project. For my swatch, it means knitting all stitches.
STEP 3
Insert the wool needle from right to left under both legs of the stitch that is at the left side of the last open stitch at the bottom of the hole. Pull the yarn through, tightening the last knitted stitch a bit.
STEP 4
Now let’s move the yarn one row up so that we could rebuild the next row of the hole.
Insert the wool needle from left to right under both legs of the stitch that is one row up from the stitch that we worked in the previous step. Pull the yarn through.
STEP 5
Turn the fabric upside down and take the needle with the stitches in your left hand and the empty needle in your right hand.
Use the yarn threaded into the wool needle as your working yarn and work all stitches in pattern. Because my swatch is in stockinette stitch, I will purl all stitches in this row.
STEP 6
To anchor the yarn, insert the wool needle from right to left under both legs of the closest stitch at the side edge of the hole and pull the yarn through tightening the last stitch of this row.
STEP 7
Turn the work so that the needle with the open stitches is at the bottom of the rectangle again, then move the yarn up by inserting the wool needle from right to left under both legs of the stitch that is above the stitch that we entered in the previous step.
Pull the yarn through, then repeat steps 2 through 7 until you rebuild all rows of the rectangle.
FINISHING
Now it is the time to join each stitch on the knitting needle to a corresponding stitch in the set of stitches that form the top edge of the rectangle. Use the same yarn tail that is already threaded into the wool needle, and the classic Kitchener stitch method.
If you are not familiar with Kitchener stitch, here’s a tutorial that explains how this method works.
Pull the tails at the sides of the rectangle to adjust the size of the “border stitches”. Transfer the tail at the bottom right corner of the patch to the wrong side of the fabric.
Then turn the project to the wrong side and weave in all yarn tails – the ones left by the yarn we used to mend the hole, and the small tails that lined the side edges of the rectangle. Use the method explained over here if the tails are too short.
Because I used yarn in a contrasting colour, you can clearly see the patch that we’ve just created.
HERE’S A VIDEO TUTORIAL THAT SHOWS EVERY STEP
When we mend a hole with a yarn in the same colour as the project, the patch is absolutely invisible. No one will ever be able to tell that this area of the project used to have a nasty hole.
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This and 36 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #7.