Making a darned Patch

Darning

This is the best method for repairing knitted items.  It is possible to patch knits (e.g. elbow patches on your favouring cardi) but it will have an impact on the elasticity and movement of the garment. Darning with yarn will have more flexibility.

The mend:

To begin, position your knitted item with the hole facing up, and the fabric right side out and thread your needle with a colour of your choice.

It can be helpful to mark the area of your darn on the fabric, if this is possible.

Bring the needle up from the inside of the item (the wrong side) to the outside, about 1cm above the right-hand side of the hole, and 1cm to the right of the edge of the hole.  You can either knot the end of the thread (make sure the knot is appropriate to the natural gaps in the fabric), or leave a long tail which you will deal with later.

Take the thread straight across the surface of the fabric and poke the needle back through to the wrong side about 1cm to the right of and 1cm below the hole.

Bring the needle up half a knit stitch to the left of the point where you stitched down to the wrong side, take the thread straight across the surface of the fabric and then stitch down half a knit stitch away from your starting point.

Continue in this way taking the thread up and down across the surface of the fabric and the hole until you reach a point approximately 1cm below and 1cm to the left of the bottom of the hole.

You have now created the warp across which you will need to weave your thread to complete your mend.

Bring your needle up half a knit stitch above and to the left of the last stitch you made and start to weave: over the first long stitch, under the second, over the third and so on until you reach the end of the row. Take your needle down half a knit stitch from the last long stitch.

Bring the needle black up half a knit stitch above the first line of weaving and work the thread back to where you started, this time going over all the stitches you went under and under all those you went over.

Top Tip:  If your needle is a bit too pointy and sharp and you find that it catches in the fabric or the thread, turn it around so that you are weaving with the eye end pointing forward instead.

Continue weaving backwards and forwards in this way until you reach the top of the mend.  When you cannot fit in any more woven rows, take your needle through to the wrong side of the fabric and leave it there.

Finishing off:

Turn your piece of clothing so that the wrong side (the inside of the garment) is now facing you.  Weave all the loose ends through the stitches on the wrong side of the fabric and snip off any excess to leave the back looking as tidy as you can.  Don’t worry if it’s still a bit messy, you are the only person who’s going to know!

Optional extras:

As your confidence grows you can experiment with using different coloured threads for the warp and weft (long stitches and weaving), or even using multiple colours for both, which will give some really interesting colour effects.  You could also add extra stitch(es) before taking the thread across the hole in one or both directions, creating a different style of darned patch