How to Repair a Moth Eaten Sweater

If your sweater has substantial moth damage, your best bet will be to have it professionally reknit. In this process, knitters will remove some threads from the seam or other part of the sweater and knit them in by hand, thread by thread.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• bonding agent
• yarn
• large needle

1. Look in the Yellow Pages under Weaving and Mending for a local connection to someone who will reknit or reweave your sweater. You might also find a talented knitter through church groups or at a local senior center.

2. Using a large needle and two- or three-ply yarn, simply cover over the flaw in the sweater by stitching from edge to edge of the moth hole. Use embroidery stitches if you want to create a flower or other object.

3. Use a fabric bonding agent to fix smaller holes. By following instructions exactly, you can do a nice repair job without needing to hire a knitter.

Tips & Warnings

• There are several reweaving companies online that will allow you to send in your sweater for repair. Simply enter "sweater repair" or "reweaving" into a search engine.
• If you knit, always save some yarn that can be used to repair the sweater later if it becomes damaged.
• It will be unlikely that you can find an exact match for the sweater's original yarn. Be creative and use a contrasting yarn for a spot of color.
• Having a garment reknitted is rather expensive. The cost for repairing a small hole can be $20 or more and cost goes up as the damage gets worse.

[EchoGecko]

on 4/17/2007 By doing a simple google, you would have found these instructions:
http://www.onceuponapattern.com/custom/mendknit.html

[EchoGecko]

on 4/17/2007 By doing a simple google you would have found these instructions:
http://www.onceuponapattern.com/custom/mendknit.html

[knitalt]

on 4/15/2007 As one who does professional reknitting, here are some suggestions of books that anyone who wants to try making a knit repair themselves. The first is "Mend It! a complete guide to clothes repair" by Maureen Goldsworthy Publisher Stein & Day 1980. You may be able to find this book through 2nd hand book dealers online. It has excellent pictures of how to reknit a hole. It also has wonderful advice for many other types of garment repairs. The 2nd book is "Flawless Knit Repair" by Rena Crockett. This a a thin spiral bound volume published in 1998 and is often available at yarn shops and such dealers online. It has many drawings of how to do reknitting, but may be slightly confusing in it's presentation. There are a few different ways to approach reknitting. Flawless Knit Repair presents one way. If it works for you, Great! If not, look for some of the other ways. Aside from the books that are listed above, check out your local library for aditional source in their knitting section. Good Luck!

[MrsTommie]

on 3/14/2007 I was looking for how-to information to do it myself. This "send it to a shop" advice is not helpful. I made the sweater. I want to fix it.

[lauraks555]

on 1/3/2007 So the how-to-fix it is send it off to be fixed? Do people really need to be told how to call up a repair shop? I wanted to know how to actually darn or graft a hole in a knitted item, not how to call a repair shop. This is very disappointing.