I have a peachy/red sweater in my closet – I’ve owned it for at least 40 years – bought it at Mills Brothers when 100% wool sweaters were the norm. I have worn it a lot as the wear patterns attest. There are no holes – yet – but I haven’t had it on recently because my white turtlenecks highlight the worn spots.

I’m not sure what prompted me, but yesterday I looked at the sweater, thought about putting it in the garbage, but instead went through my yarn stash and found a ball of variegated sock yarn in shades of peach/red and decided to try repairing the sweater, instead. I thought about darning the worn sections but in the end decided Swiss darning was more appropriate.

When I placed a piece of white paper inside the sweater the wear spots jumped out! There’s actually a LOT of reinforcing needed. Because I don’t actually have holes that need fixing, I am able to “duplicate” stitch my way through the thin sections, reinforcing the stitches in the sweater. It’s a slow process with lots of yarn ends needing to be woven into the back of each reinforced section.

At the moment, I have both sleeves “done” (I may do more). I’ve started on the right front – rather than one very large patch, I’m planning to create several smaller sections – I can always join them up if I need to.

I’m not sure what the repair is going to look like when I’m done or whether I might actually wear the sweater when I’m finished! I just need to get back to my darning and see what happens.