Doodles
We all know I'm not a sweater knitter. Sweater wearer yes, sweater knitter no. And while I have no desire to knit my own sweaters, I do occasionally want to, shall we say customize, the cozy, comfy, easy, store-bought sweaters I wear so often. It started with mending, because why not fix what you have if you can. Then it moved on to things like adjusting the band at the bottom of a sweater (the band that causes a sweater to draw in at precisely the point my body flares out, the appeal of which I will never understand) or [...]
Improvements
So, the sweater from the other day? The one rescued from the ravages of kitten brutality? Here it is all mended (you can watch me do some of that over on instagram if you're so inclined). And here it is with the neckline adjusted so I like it better for me (you can watch me do some of that too). And just because this stuff is important to say, here is your bonus reminder that you should absolutely have your neckline wherever you want. Anyone who tries to make you feel bad about how much or how little skin you [...]
Stabby sweet
I love cotton sweaters. I love the tiny kitten. The tiny kitten loves to make biscuits on my cotton sweaters, and sometimes this happens. So I have to fix it. In this case, when it's just One Single Split Strand, you can actually fix it pretty perfectly if you tuck the yarn back in and use matching sewing thread to splice the ends back together. But that will not be quite as sturdy as I like (I know myself, I know my laundry habits, it's better if I fix this in a way that allows for rougher handling than that [...]
Joining, part two
That top I started to fix a few weeks ago? Yeah, here's attempts two (ripped out) and three (the winner). So in case you don't happen to follow my every word with breathless attention, this is the neck opening of a sweater. It's open a bit farther down than I'd like, so I wanted to close it up a bit. I started by trying to just stitch it freehand (that was the post from a few weeks ago), but things shifted around a bit too much, so I stuck it in an embroidery hoop to hold everything still. That helped [...]
Joining
This is going to be fun. Well, not this. This is about to get picked out. But then I'm going to do it again more carefully, and I think that will be fun. You see, I have a sweater with a neckline that's a bit lower than I like. And it would be the perfect sweater if only the neckline were just an inch or two higher. So I'm going to fix it. I started by putting it on and experimenting with a pin and a mirror to figure out where I wanted the neckline to fall. And it turns [...]
I can bring blocking into anything
Here's that little shoulder patch after it's gone through the washer (and dryer...pajama sweaters do not generally get air dried folks). Take a look at the difference between freshly mended and after several washes. I actually like it much more now that the yarn has plumped up and fuzzed out a bit, so I am super happy with this. But it is a beautiful example of...wait for it...why swatching and blocking are so damn important. Bear with me here. Swatching is to let you know how your fabric is going to behave before you go to the trouble of knitting [...]
Further improvements
Ok, so there's the first one done! You can see I ended up doing a second area of duplicate stitch, but it's a little funny looking. That's because, when I handed them back to their owner for a fit check, the heel was declared delightfully cushiony...and now that it was so soft and cozy, it became clear that the ball of the foot was...less so. That's largely because I knit these socks back in my 'what? what do you mean my stitches are twisted? aren't they all supposed to be like this?' phase of being a baby knitter. So [...]
And repeat…
Now we settle in for the actual mending. But first things first, I was not in charge of this color selection. The original yarn is long gone, so I asked the sock's owner if we should go with as close a match as possible, or something super high contrast. The vote went for super high contrast. So I rummaged around in the scraps bin for something of a suitable weight and fiber content (generally you want to get something fairly close to your original yarn, though it's not a hard and fast rule) and settled on this. Yellow and [...]
Venerable
Mending time! But first, before you start mending, a little bit of prep work is in order. Actually, we need to take an even bigger step back. This is probably the very oldest knitting I've ever shown around these parts. These socks are from 2008. You know, back when we were all young and well rested, did not have a failed reality tv personality encouraging a coup, did not have anxiety dreams about leaving of the house without a face mask, and had no idea what instagram was because it hadn't been invented yet. They've been in spouse's sock drawer [...]
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