KNITSTER

I’ve had to put a major kaibosh on my knitting because of nerve pain in my left arm. But my mad knitting skillz did not go to waste just now when I pulled out a Lane Bryant cardigan with a nifty lace pattern that I got from a closeout sale. Closeouts are cool because you get $50 stuff marked down because it’s damaged or “irregular.” Lane Bryant finds here are always in rough shape, because it always sends stuff with obvious imperfections.

But sweaters? No problem—CAUSE I’M A KNITTER! This one had three problems: one of the front closure ties had detached from the sweater, but miraculously was still tied to the other tie. Easy enough to tack back on. Then, a shoulder seam had gotten nipped and was coming apart, but hadn’t run, I think partly because of the complex lace pattern. (Any time an increase is done with a make one, for instance, you can’t get a runner past that point.) So I bound up the loose ends, stitched over them so that they wouldn’t fray, and then tucked the resultant rope against the seam, which looked like it was serged to bias tape, and backstitched that on, closing up the hole. There was a runner in the top back that went nowhere, probably a defect in the original knitting. So I took a smallish crochet hook and made one, then chain stitched up into the pattern, using a single crochet stitch to pull together the two pieces of “pattern” where the run turned, and continuing up to the collar edging. There, I took the loop I had left, pulled a thread through, and sewed the last loop into the edging.

I didn’t think to take pictures of the before, but I will do some close up shots of my repairs and the resultant sweater. Best $4 buy ever!

Posted on April 21st, 2007 by Helen
Filed under: Projects