How to Mend Knitwear Using Swiss Darning
In the second in our series on mending, we show you how to use Swiss Darning to repair a hole in a knitted fabric.
Swiss darning can be used to create a near-invisible mend if worked in the same colour as your garment, or a neat visible mend if you choose a contrasting colour. It uses a row of vertical foundation stitches to temporarily hold repair stitches, which are worked using a duplicate stitch. (Check out our duplicate stitch tutorial here).
What You Need
Needle - a tapestry, darning or wool needle with a large enough eye for your repair thread
Repair thread - in a similar weight and fibre to the garment that you are repairing
Thread to work the foundation stitches - ideally in a different colour to your repair thread, and slightly finer
Scissors - to tidy up the hole and snip any ends once you finish the repair
You may also find it useful to use a darning mushroom or an embroidery hoop to gently stretch and support the fabric while you work.
Method
Step 1
Snip away any loose threads around the hole that is to be darned. This will make it easier to see what you are doing, and will result in a neater finish
Step 2
Set up the vertical foundation stitches. They go from the bottom to the top of the hole, like long knit stitches, preventing laddering and providing a structure to stitch over.
Using the foundation stitch thread, insert your needle from back to front through the leftmost stitch at the base of the hole. Then at the top of the hole, insert it from front to back behind the left and right legs of the leftmost stitch and bring it back to the front. Finally go back into the leftmost stitch at the bottom of the hole from front to back. Move one stitch to the right and repeat across the width of the hole.
Step 3
Using the darning thread, work duplicate stitch across the row below the hole, starting one or two stitches to the left. This will create a border of duplicate stitch that will strengthen the repair. Continue up to the next row, and when you get to the hole work the darning stitches around the vertical foundation threads so keep them in place.
Step 4
Continue to work across the hole, wrapping your darning stitches around the foundation stitches until you have reached the top. Duplicate stitch at least one row above the hole to strengthen the darn. You can now carefully remove the vertical foundation stitches if desired.
