We interrupt your regularly scheduled elbow patches to talk about the slits on the side of the sweater. I love sweaters with side slits (what can I say, I have a big ass, side slits make for extra ass room).  But I find they tend to get messed up over time).  But...but...this is fixable! The best way I've found to fix it is by blanket stitching around the perimeter of the slit.  Now, if you were a cool kid, you'd do this before it got worn out.  But if you were me, you'd intend to do it before it got [...]

So these are the patches. Nothing fancy, just more or less oval shaped, and a good bit bigger than the worn area on the sweater.⁠ I'm knitting the patches in Ontheround's Everyday DK in Silver Lining Tweed. That's actually the exact same yarn I used for the original patch (this is more leftovers from the same skein I used before). ⁠ You can see that the original patch faded a good bit since I put it on. This is totally MY fault, NOT the yarn's fault. I have done things to this yarn that no yarn should have to endure. [...]

Like with a lot of projects, the middle of this is going to look a bit messy.  I'm pretty sure if I were doing this right I'd only show you the shiny finished product.  But I always find it refreshing to see that someone else has messy bits in the middle, so I'm leaving them in. The first step was ripping off the old patch.  I'd put it on there rather firmly, and it has been through the wash dozens of times since I put it on, so this part was actually kind of a pain.  But I wanted to [...]

This mending thing is an ongoing process.  If you were here last spring, you may remember I saved the elbow on an old cotton sweater I wear as pajamas.  Well that kept the sweater happily in the rotation for another nine months. But now, the elbow on the other side is starting to get thin.  It doesn't quite have an actual hole yet, but if I don't do something soon, it will. So I've decided to just go all out and fix this up properly.  I'm going to take off the old patch and make a big patch for each [...]

So, I have a couple of cozy house sweaters that have that stupid, irritating band at the bottom. The band like you see on the bottom of sweatshirts. The one that causes the sweater to pull in just at the point where my body goes out.  This is not ideal.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ So today, today I fixed it.⁠ I stared at the band at the side of the sweater, and saw that there was a seam there. So I grabbed my seam ripper (they are so handy, you should have one) and sliced it right on open (as always, amazon links [...]

Just a few more rows... And then a little taper at the top (mostly because picking up a whole row of stitches straight is a pain, so I decided I'd just decrease it away and make a curve)... And it's done! Oh, and then at the end I noticed the cable coming off the side was a little frayed, so I took my tail and duplicate stitched over it to be extra safe. Again, totally not invisible, not subtle, but it will keep the sweater in circulation for a nice long time. I'm trying to decide if I want to [...]

I have a cheap cotton sweater from some fast fashion place (maybe Old Navy, maybe Target, I'm not 100% sure, it's at least six or seven years old).  It started life as an actual wear-out-in-public sweater. Then after a year or so, it transitioned to a pajama sweater (I know, some people loathe cotton sweaters, and they're not what you want to wear if your goal is to keep warm, but they're my favorite thing to wear as pajamas, and I am the boss of my pajamas, so I get to wear them if I want).⁣ And now...well now I've worn [...]

So I really do mean it when I say I mend my socks. Every time I take them off, I check for thin spots.  If there's just a little thin spot, I'll wash them first and then mend them.  If there's an actual hole, I'll fix them before I wash them because washing them with a hole can make the hole bigger (which is maybe gross? but whatever...it's just socks...you can wash your hands after). I strongly prefer catching it while it's just a thin spot because then you can just duplicate stitch over it.  (This is the bit where [...]