'Tis the season for wearing warm gloves, and my husband dug his out of the closet the other day. He had worn holes in the thumbs and asked me to mend them. I began by threading a yarn needle with a length of yarn. Cut the longest length you can handle, because adding new yarn is a little awkward. I started off to the side a ways before and below the hole, inserting the needle between the knit part and the thermal part and making sure to keep hold of the tail. I then proceeded to weave in the tail. If you do it before you start, you don't have to worry about how to do it after you've filled in the hole! I took the needle over the bars between the stitches. You can do this from the right side, and it's just as invisible as from the wrong side. I couldn't get a clear photo of it, but I took the needle 4 diagonal steps down toward the hole without pulling through, and then stuck it back up through the glove to the right side. I pulled the yarn through, making sure to keep hold of the tail. I stuck the needle down through the same place it came up and wove it over and under the bars again, 4 steps up toward the hole. Then I duplicate stitched 2 rows below the hole, starting 2 stitches before and ending 2 stitches after the hole. Now comes the good part. When I got to the hole itself, I started looping the center stitches over a double-pointed needle. Then I was able to keep the end stitches on the glove as reinforcement, and knit across the stitches over the hole. Where the hole got larger, I moved my end stitches outward, and where it got smaller, I moved them inward. I ended by grafting the live stitches to the glove fabric. As you can see, they turned out serviceable---better, in my opinion, than buying whole new gloves. But it took a little over three hours for two thumbs. A matching color would have been less visible, but still apparent. I was interested in the work and doing it for the man I love, but it isn't a quick fix.
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We recently had our windows replaced, and we had to take all our curtains down. We have a lovely room with corner windows toward the front of the house which requires ten curtains of a certain size. We thoughtfully chose what turned out to be the perfect color for them, hung the curtains, and lived happily with them for nine years. Then we took the curtains down to replace the windows, and found that some of our lovely curtains had mildewed. This is the worst of them---sunbleached and mildewed. You can see an approximation of the original green on the right. The sheers were also mildewed, and they disintegrated in the wash, so we replaced them. The stains did not come off the green curtains when we washed them, so we looked for replacements.
Apparently the curtain we bought is no longer available, the company does not make curtains that size any more, and in fact nobody seems to make them. That was okay, because we couldn't really afford ten curtains after replacing our windows! What we could afford was a dye job. I did a sample to see whether it would cover up the mildew and it did a satisfactory job. Now I just have to find a friend with a top-loading washing machine who will let me dye a couple loads of curtains a lovely sage green! My husband did a load of whites immediately after I dyed this, with no ill effects. This is the story of Hepworth, and how it came to be. Hepworth's spikes are not symmetrical from top to bottom, but more thorn shaped. I designed this raglan to be knit from the top down so the spikes would curve upward, like thorns. That meant I could try it on as I went . . . but that doesn't guarantee a good fit! The shoulders looked great, the chest looked great, but then I knit the torso and found the weight of the fabric made the armholes stretch significantly. Regrettably, I didn't photograph my new batwing sweater. The deadline was fast approaching, and I went into crisis-control mode. I don't remember exactly how I fixed it, but I did adjust the pattern so you will get it right the first time you knit it! After performing surgery, I tried it on again and it was fine, so I added the zipper. It took 3 days instead of the 45 minutes the instructions promised, but then, not only do I sew slowly under normal circumstances but I was being extra careful because I was scared of bleeding on the beautiful white garment. My swatch had taken forever to dry, so I had my heart set on steaming the finished jacket instead of washing it. I didn't carry the project around with me like I usually do, in order to keep it clean. But since the poor thing had been languishing and had had surgery and all, it really needed a bath. I spun it in the washing machine afterward, but that bulky yarn with cotton content . . . Anyway, I tried it on again once it was dry, and found it needed even more surgery under the arms once zipped. When that was done, I was pleased with it and went to steam it with the iron. I was just thinking maybe I should get a pressing cloth when the iron spit brown stuff all over and it was back to the sink for Spike. I only had to spot clean, but I was trying to avoid getting the cotton wet at all! Luckily, my editor was understanding and I was able to send the sweater in a little past the deadline. You would never know the trauma that sweater has been through unless you looked at the wrong side where I wove in all the ends. Certainly not by the calm, regal look on the model's face! |
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