I’m really devastated I’ve been knitting this top down aran sweater for last 4-5weeks as my second project. I must have picked too much of a difficult project as a beginner. I made a mistake on one of the twisted cables and I even cut it. I don’t think I can fix it at this point and want to frog only the sleeve I made mistake on. Can anyone please help?
Can I frog only a sleeve of a top down sweater?
Wow, this is so upsetting to find a hole in such a lovely project.
I don’t think you chose something too difficult you’re doing a fantastic job of it!
I’m sure youmwill have response from members more knowledgeable than me about whether you can redo this sleeve, but for now can you save each of those stitches that are showing by putting a removable stitch marker or safety pin or a different coloured yarn loop through each individual stitch that you can see? Try not to move the fabric so the stitches don’t run further and just pop the holders in.
It may be possible to save each stitch and sew them in with a yarn strand to mend the hole. Once you have them safe there may be some areas you can even up the tension on the pulled or loose stitches to help them even out and go back in place.
Good luck with this. It looks so lovely.
Taking out just the sleeve isn’t going to be reasonable because of the way it is joined to the body. You could knit over to the area of the diamond pattern and ladder down that whole area to the mistake and cut yarn. Then rejoin the yarn strand leaving a 6" tail to weave in later.
An alternative is to reknit just the sts at the mistake using a new end of yarn. Weave in the cut ends after you make the repair. As Creations mentioned, saving the sts above the mistake will prevent them from laddering further.
It’s really lovely knitting and you’ve made wonderful progress on the sweater. Yes, not a beginner project but you have worked it beautifully.
Knit top down should mean the bind off is at the bottom of the cuff. If so then I think frogging just one sleeve should not be a problem. There are other approaches as mentioned above but if you deem frogging to be the way to do it then I think you can IF the bind off edge is at the bottom of the cuff.
Unfortunately as this is above the split (where you separated the sleeves and body), you can’t unravel the sleeve and reknit, as I am sure you have realised.
There is another option. Undo the cast-off edge at the cuff of the sleeve, then drop the stitches of the cable motif column and allow/encourage them to drop all the way down to where the hole is, and then a row or two past it.
Then use DPNs to knit just that column all the way back up, using a small length of yarn to bridge where the cut strand is.
I’m afraid it’s a bit time consuming and fiddly. Here is a video tutorial about it:
This tutorial is for fixing a miscrossed cable. In your case, you would be doing the same laddering down and reknitting up, but you would go below the hole, and would need to use a short piece of yarn to bridge the two cut ends.
You can also attempt to repair the hole by using a sewing needle and lengths of yarn to recreate the stitches. This is more tricky. Here is a blog article about it:
Possibly the easiest option would be to use some of your leftover yarn to mend the hole as best you can, making sure all the stitches are secured. Unfortunately this won’t be an invisible mend like the above options.