Recent Repair of a Knit Afghan

Now that I’m getting back into the swing of things, I wanted to document a unique repair that I worked on. This 52-year old afghan was in need of some TLC before it got handed off to the next generation. Working with this piece was a true pleasure, with the yarn in remarkably good condition for it’s age. The afghan was a huge ripple pattern, with 9 panels joined together by intarsia.

INTARSIA. Think about that… it wasn’t seamed. It was 9 balls of yarn that were worked on at the same time across the blanket.

But back to the repair! There were several holes – mostly along the edge where ends had worked loose, but also one spot in the center of the piece.

Since the stitches in this piece “traveled” because of the ripple pattern, you’ll notice the hole angles itself across the piece. The first step, as always, was to tidy up the area and understand what had happened.

I was having trouble seeing what was going on at various points, so you’ll notice as I’m working on the repairs I found it easier to flip the piece over and work from the other side.

You can get a better idea of the pattern on the afghan here as I begin to secure stitches and tidy up the hole. A white piece of paper under the hole helped me get better contrast and reflected more light back onto the piece.

You will notice that I started by putting every loose stitch on its own stitch marker.

Going to tackle laddering up the two sitches secured with the teal stitch markers on the left first. Putting a piece of paper behind where I was working made it easier to see. One stitch laddered up back on the same row as the rest. Second one laddered up and secured. At this point I thought it would be easier to move the stitches to a double pointed needle so I could knit in pattern. You’ll see the next four rows are all unravled, and I’m using a blue large locking stitch marker to keep the strands sorted and out of my way until I need them. Personally I think being a contiental knitter makes this technique easier. I’m knitting each row of the dropped yarn back together in patternn. I don’t worry if my stitches are stretched out or my gauge is wonky, I’ll go back later and fuss around with the individual stitches to make them the correct size. Because of the yarnover in the pattern here, the yarn that looks like the intuitive one to grab is incorrect. I’m checking myself here to make sure that I grab the right strand to knit the next row.

We’ve got the four rows knitted in the afghan. Time to figure out the mess above. After fooling around with a few different options, I’ve decided that it would be better to reweave the next few rows in waste yarn first to make sure the pattern is correct. This decision was also informed by the fact that I was having trouble sourcing a good match for the yarn, and still hadn’t found a good option. I can keep working on the repair and reweaving the area without having to wait to locate the correct yarn. As you can see by the quality of the photo, it was getting late and dark, and it was time to take a break. New day, and I decided to tackle some of the other problems in the blaket – namely a number of small pulls that where in various places on the blanket. Pulls are dangerous because the yarn hanging loose can catch on things and break – making that place more likely to develop a hole. When I first get a piece I try to go over the whole item and make sure there aren’t any other holes or problems that the client hadn’t noticed. I then mark every area I find with a locking stitch marker so I can find the place later. Fixing pulls is fiddly work.

Meanwhile, I would like to call your attention to the J in the corner of the frame here. The client’s intionals have been embroidered with crochet on the afghan. I always love details like this, because very few knit or crochet items have any indication of the owner or makers (unlike quilts which often have a tag on the back with the date, the creator and the reciepient put in).

I’ve moved back to the big hole, and I’m using waste yarn to figure out the pattern and how best to reweave the area. Something isn’t right – I have an extra stitch, held by the locking stitch marker that isn’t lining up in the pattern. At this point I’ve been struggling with the pattern for a while. When I reach these points I start wondering if there is a mistake in the pattern – could the origonal hole have started because of a dropped stitch that wasn’t noticed? Did the knitter fudge the pattern? Is it my mistake? Time to change perspective and see if anything is clearer by flipping the piece over. Something wonky IS going on here. Part of it I suspect is caused by the origonal knitter using a decrease that twisted the stitches. Time to take another break, give my brain a rest, and come back later. So many times problems are solved by taking a break and coming back to the repair later. A fresh perspective meant I realized I’d need to cut a row in order to reweave things together again (those pesky twisted stitch decreases were fouling things up). Once I cut that row and pulled it out a little (represented by the purple waste yarn) things started coming together. A quick look at the back where my ends were hanging out. I finally found a good match for the repair – a wool yarn in a very close color. Thank you again, Stitching Studio! Tracing the waste yarn with the repair yarn, this is pulling together fairly quickly. Ends woven in, and hole marked with a bit of waste yarn.