Darning my sweater

I recently returned home for a visit with my daughter and her family.  They have a new addition to the family, Maple a golden retriever puppy.  Maple is now 4 months old and we all know that puppies have sharp teeth.  He bit my gray merino wool sweater with his incisors so I had two holes right by my wrist. 

So I thought I’d share my way of darning, learned from my mom and great aunts. Of course I have updated the way to do it as they would try to match the yarn and reweave the holes in the holey garment.  I prefer to showcase the holes, so I threaded a needle with sewing thread that was a close enough match to the sweater, and I proceeded to do a rough reweave.  Once I had done that, I found a scrap of fabric (pink velveteen), and cut out two tiny hearts. 

I pinned the hearts over the patched holes and stitched around them with embroidery thread.  The trick with mending a sweater is to have something that you can use as a backing to support your sewing.  I have this little ceramic thing that is made for this purpose, but a beer bottle of something like that works too.  When stitching make sure you don’t pull the thread too much.  Keep it fairly loose.

 With my heart patches completed, I can wear my sweater without worrying that the holes will get bigger.  Next time Maple and I meet hopefully he will have outgrown his puppy biting!