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Part of Sweater mending how it works: a step-by-step guide
Buying sweater mending supplies first, and what can wait
A short list for knitwear repair: blunt yarn needles, a rounded support, and yarn matched by fineness, with a note on what wool label numbers actually mean.
A knitwear repair kit is smaller than a general mending kit, because most of the work is done with three items. The money goes on yarn, and the difficulty is matching it. No brands are compared; nothing here was tested against anything else.
What to take away
- Blunt yarn needles in two sizes. Sharp needles cut loops and cause the next hole.
- One rounded support. A wooden darning mushroom, an egg, or a ball in a clean sock.
- Yarn matched by fiber and by fineness, not by color.
- Skip yarn kits sold by color range. You need fineness, and color ranges do not sort for it.
The list, in order
- Blunt yarn needles, one fine and one medium
- A rounded darning support
- A fine contrasting thread for securing live loops before you start
- Wool yarn in a neutral, split down to the thickness of the garment yarn if needed
- Small sharp scissors reserved for yarn
That is a complete kit. Everything after it is specific to one garment.
The item people leave out is contrasting thread for securing loops. It costs almost nothing. It turns a small hole into a repairable one instead of a run that swallows half a sleeve while you look for the right yarn.
Thread it through the live loops the moment you notice the damage, then deal with the repair whenever you have an evening free.
Fineness is what you are matching
Wool label numbers are not marketing, and the labeling of very fine wool rule defines Super numbers, with products mislabeled if they miss the standards.
Super 80s requires wool averaging 19.75 microns or finer, Super 90s requires 19.25 microns or finer. Super 100s requires 18.75 microns or finer, Super 110s requires 18.25 microns or finer, and the scale continues upward.
For a mender that is a usable ladder. A fine suiting knit labeled with a high Super number needs a finer repair yarn than a chunky sweater, and if you cannot buy that fineness you can split a plied yarn down to it.
What 100 percent wool does and does not tell you
The all wool or 100 percent wool label is regulated but narrower than it sounds. The rule on the use of the term all or 100 percent permits those terms when the product is composed wholly of one fiber.
It gives 100 percent recycled wool and all recycled wool as valid examples alongside 100 percent wool. It also allows the term with fiber ornamentation not exceeding 5 percent, if the phrase exclusive of ornamentation follows.
So 100 percent wool covers both new and recycled wool, and those two behave differently under a needle. If the label says recycled, buy new wool for the repair.
What not to buy yet
Knitting needles, a swift, a ball winder, and multi-color yarn packs. None of them is needed to darn a hole, and each is a purchase that makes sense once you are knitting rather than repairing.
Buy after you have looked at the garment, since the repair sequence tells you which support and which needle you need, and knowing whether the yarn is reclaimed or new decides how much yarn to buy.
