Suede Patch Cardigan - Oh shucks, darn it!

It may have taken me months to do this, but I am very happy with the belated results. Even more months earlier I had discovered a hole in the sleeve of my favorite black cardigan and I put it aside to mend it one day. Before I was ready to do that I put it on one more time and while I blogged my heart a way the little hole became a huge awkward mess. I didn't want to throw it away so I started to think fabric patches but didn't really know how to do that. So the cardigan just waited...and waited.

Luckily, a few weeks ago, I read about someone darning socks on their blog and thought perhaps I could use that to at least tighten up the hole which I could then cover up. I searched around until I found two tutorials that I thought explained the technique well and set down to fix up my sweater. This one, explains a more intricate method very well, but I found this video tutorial* the most helpful, because I could actually see it step-by-step.

I didn't have a darning egg/mushroom so I just used a rolled-up magazine under the hole and though a bit awkward, it worked fine.

This is the corrected side.
(Enlarge to see blurry detail.)

Note: Very important, remember to darn from the wrong side, once you are done the opposite side is the one that will look much better than the "working" side. I did it wrong, but luckily for me, it didn't matter because I was going to cover the hole with a black patch, but if you are darning socks you want to be sure to do it correctly.

Embroidery needle and red floss.

I decided on using this black faux suede that I inherited from my mom's old fabric stash. I also had burgundy and camel to choose from but decided to go with the matching fabric color.

However, I then realized I had no black embroidery floss so I ended up going with bright red instead! This is what the inside of the good arm looks like. I used a backstitch which allowed the inside to look quite cool too.

To sew on this patch, I used an old pleather wallet** underneath to keep from stitching both sides of the sleeve together.



*The video tutorial found on Molly Knits Sweaters was created by greenfibres.com.

** Ooh, a step up from the rolled-up magazine, see?