I’m new here. I’ve returned to knitting after a long absence and can’t figure out why I ever stopped!
I have a problem. I cut through a stitch on a completed sweater. :gah: There’s a hole as big as a stitch and the short ends that no longer connect the stitches. What is the best way to fix this? It’s on the front of a navy sweater made out of cotton… stockinette stitch. I’d rip the front out if I could, but the sleeves were knitted on to the front. All suggestions very welcome!!
I’ve never tried it, but I wonder if you could use duplicate stitch to fix this. Since you can’t tie off the cut ends without making the hole bigger maybe it would work to make a “patch” of duplicate stitch over an area all around the hole with the hole right in the middle. That might secure the ends so it wouldn’t come undone. I don’t know how big such a “patch” would have to be, an inch, a little more than that? :think:
You could always make a swatch and cut a thread of it and try it out.
lay the sweater out flat, maybe with a piece of cardboard inside of it where the hole is.
Now use needles to secure that one stitch underneath and the loop the broken stitch goes into. To be able to tie off the ends, you may have to undo a few more stitches. then you have ends you can tie.
with the same yarn work the repair stitches for mending 2 pieces together.
I have not tried it!!! This as a warning. But this is what I can think off!
Yep, kind of duplicate stitch.
You’ll need a foot or so of matching yarn. It helps if, instead of just lacing through stitches on the back as if you were burying the end, you actually pierce through the yarn, and you’ll want to run through an inch or two. Make sure you go through the yarn itself on the back right beside the hole. Next, replace the stitch by following it through the fabric, then punch through the yarn on the back of the next stitch and continue to run the end in the same way, piercing through the yarn as often as possible on the back. You can add a drop of flexible fabric glue where you clip off the yarn if you want to be double-extra-sure.
Now, with the end of a yarn needle, pick the cut stitch out and slide the ends behind the work. With the patch yarn punched through it, it shouldn’t go anywhere, but you can glue that to be sure, too.
Takes longer to describe than to do, and honest, it does work! (Not that I have ever cut a hole in a sweater while trying to trim a dangling yarn end…nope, not me…)
I’m new to this, so I just want to check out what you said. Are you saying that when I do the duplicate stitch I push the needle through the strands of the stitches I’m duplicating? I’m not new to a knitting disaster… just new to one when you’d almost have to start from scratch to fix the mistake properly.
Feel free to PM me if I’m getting the idea all wrong. And thanks…
Yep, on the back. What you’d be doing is more or less joining the yarn as if you’d run out unexpectedly and were going to spit-splice, then making the replacement stitch, then going on and splicing again. Once you do that, everything’s pretty solid and you can pick the cut part back through and fasten it on the back so it won’t get loose and advertise itself.
Not that I’ve ever made that kind of mistake. Or 4, 926 others:teehee:
Thank you for that link, Jan! I bookmarked it so I’ll have it if I get a hole in any of my handknit socks. Seems likely since my new puppy likes knitting. And by that I mean she likes to grab my knitting and run around with it. It’s so hard to remember to keep things put away!