Preparing Sweater for Its Second Life...

My nephew has a favourite sweater he's had for years.  My niece (his younger sister) has her eye on it for as soon as he outgrows it!  It is a beautiful Canada wool sweater with a fleece lining.

Unfortunately, the elbow on one of the arms snagged and caused a hole.  Knowing that its his favourite, and little sister wants it, my very smart sister-in-law considered different ways to fix this before the hole got bigger!

1) Sewing the hole shut.  My comment - it won't be invisible and I'd worry about the thread cutting the yarn faster over time.  Pilling of sweaters occurs from the fibers rubbing against each other, add in a nylon thread and it'll cut.

2) Elbow Patch.  This would be a cool feature, but probably not what the niece wants for 'style'

3) Patterned Darning.  This would be an equally cool feature, but probably not what the nephew wants for style.

4) Invisible Mending - and that is what I did.

1-Hole in sweater elbow, 2-after depilling area for clarity, 3-hole mended

A photo posted by Katherine Caughran (@stringandbeans) on Apr 13, 2016 at 12:10pm PDT

Now, with this being fleece lined, using existing yarn from the sweater (side seams) wasn't an easy task for such a small fix; however I did have a matching yarn in a slightly heavier weight.  Steps I took to fix it were:

• I thinned the new yarn a bit so it wouldn't create a thicker area in that spot; 
• shaved the pilling around the hole so I could see the stitches clearly, 
• sewed a 'grid' with white cotton sock yarn to guide me and 
• swiss darned the hole which was 3 rows by 2 stiches

Depilling helps renew the look of the sweater, and prevents future 'snags'.  Plus it gives the sweater new life...My photos don't do it justice!

Before and after depilling

A photo posted by Katherine Caughran (@stringandbeans) on Apr 13, 2016 at 12:04pm PDT

Nephew will be happy, but I'm sure my niece is going to drool over this renewal..."Hurry up and grow big brother!!!"

Sweater: 25 years & looking brand new!

As the weather warms up, it's actually the BEST time to care for our favourite sweaters so they are clean & moth-free for the summer storage.  My favourite sweater is over 25 years old (I can't quite recall when I got it, but I know it was a gift from my parents).  I wear this sweater to nearly every hockey game and hockey practice, so the sweater is well-worn!  It just doesn't need to look that way:

Any sweater with pills will snag more easily and collect dirt more easily - dirt also attracts moths...so any sweater going into 'storage' needs to be clean to avoid surprise moth holes in the fall.  In this case, first step is de-pill the sweater!  I did one side using a dull razor from my husband, it was quick, but with the amount of pilling, became far too dull before I could complete the sweater.

I purchased a small battery operated sweater shaver, which took me a total of 3 hours to completely clean off this sweater.  Had the pilling not been so bad, it wouldn't have taken as long, and its definitely better for preventative maintenance, but for something this drastic, the shaver kept snagging - yarn would spin in the middle and catch on the sweater:

You can see it sticking out on the shaver, as the shaver spun it would catch on the sweater and build up inside the shaver

I hope to try out another technique in the coming weeks as I order in some other de-pillers :)

But, sweater looks brand-new, and after a wash & dry, I'll store this one in my closet with some lavender - because I still love this sweater for nights when camping plus I'll be visiting arenas again in August.