Knitting -- darn it

So I have a beautiful top that I love the pattern and color I chose, and it has developed a hole.

Luckily the hole is in the sleeve, not too far from the cuff, and I have extra of the color. So one way I could fix it is to unravel the sleeve to that point, join in more yarn, and re-knit past the hole. It will look the neatest.

Here are other ways to fix knitting, mostly for socks. Socks usually wear out unless, like me, you used that modern form of linsey-woolsey to make them, Cotton Fine. It's from Brown Sheep, comes in a large range of colors, and lasts decades without, unlike linsey woolsey, shrinking. I have a couple dozen pairs that even the dryer hasn't destroyed (I got tired of wet socks hanging all over the house in winter while they dried).

1. Weaving. This would work with Cotton Fine or 100% cotton but it leaves a recognizable patch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDkMShaLX9c

2. Knitting a patch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTJEKyeB2n0

Once you get good at knitting a patch, it takes 30 minutes to knit a 10 x 13 patch. It takes me 8 hours to knit a single sock. 30 minutes may sound boring and why bother, but gather all the socks that have holes in them and you may want to put in a good video or binge-watch part of a series to get them all done.

While the patch leaves a hole on the inside of the garment, that's only important because it won't be as warm as the rest of the sock. 

3. Duplicate stitch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4mKdlG4x8

Video 3 is more about noticing that your socks are wearing thin and doing something about it before you get a hole. This would work great with commercial socks if you could get a yarn in a similar fabric. There are lots of cotton/acrylic yarns in different weights nowadays. It all depends on whether you want to spend the time (about 15 minutes) instead of spending the dime for new socks.

4. Swiss duplicate stitch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxmCN1DrM1E

This takes longer, about 20 minutes for a 5 x 5 hole, but that is less than the time to re-knit the sock, and it is almost invisible. It would work great for a sweater I did that has about 3 stitches that have let go. You have to 1) mess with the hole until you get it square shaped; b) set up your thread frame for your duplicate stitches; c) do your duplicate stitches. 

Swiss darning is probably best for non-wool yarns like 100% cotton Schachenmayr Catania. 

5. Scotch darning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_eWrpPCt9c

This can fix quite a big hole, without all the prep work of Swiss darning. However, it is woven, not knitted, so it doesn't have the give of duplicate stitch. It tries to stick with the existed knit rows and columns, and that makes it different from video 1. 

You need darning needles plus something to keep you from mending the sock shut. 

Dritz, a manufacturer known to generations of needle-women, sells darning eggs and needles through Joann's. 

Knitpicks also sells darning eggs and three sizes of needles. 

Michaels and Yarn.com sell the Chibi needles in video 2 (I think it was; anyhoo).

You should use the same weight yarn you used in knitting the socks, which means leftovers shouldn't go in the trash. For video 1 or Swiss darning which are woven and won't have much give anyway, you could use a pearl embroidery thread. 

What's really impressive about our foremothers is that they did darning along with actual garment-making, plus all that cooking and cleaning with none of the modern conveniences (sometimes not even water brought into the house), plus all that outside work -- milking, poultry, gardening for food and herbals and dyestuffs and maybe vegetable rennet, making the actual butter and cheese (takes about a day to process a gallon of milk for cheese) and keeping up their sourdough trough so they could make bread in a world without little packages of yeast (3 to 7 days). And of course sometimes the men would be away from home so the woman had to cut the stovewood and maybe do the plowing and sowing and so on. My hat's off to you, ladies!