Meg’s Jumper
Meg’s jumper has to be the most heart warming project I’ve worked on so far. It had the potential from the get go and it just continued to get lovelier. I’ll hold this one dear to me for a long time.
It all started with an Instagram message from Simon, who asked if I could repair a badly damaged jumper that was owned by an older woman he often does some work for. That woman is Meg and the jumper was actually owned by her late brother.
I offered to give Meg my details directly to avoid Simon being the middle man - there can be a fair bit of communicating back and forth for repair jobs. It turned out Meg is in her 80’s, not very tech savvy and has early signs of dementia, so Simon was happy to be the go between. He also wanted to cover the costs and have it be a surprise gift for her. See, heart getting toasty warm already.
Simon mentioned the damage was a large hole in the elbow and a couple of other pulls here and there. He wasn’t sure of the fibre content as there was no label, so I said I’d do the burn test when I had it with me (which is where you set fire to the fibre and deduce what it is from how it looks and smells when it burns).
A fraction of the pins used to mark the damage
When it arrived with me I inspected the damage and there was a fair bit more than Simon had spotted. Along with the large elbow hole, there was 7 medium sized holes/damage and 15 small holes/damage.
The fibres all looked very nibbled, so it was likely moth damage - which is something I normally always check with customers before they post to me but it slipped my mind for this one! I never assume moth damage without checking in with the owner though, for example sometimes puppy/dog/rabbit nibbles in clothes can look fairly similar especially on chunkier knits.
However Simon knew it had been stored in Meg’s loft for a couple of decades so moths were the likely culprits. Thankfully on this rare occasion I had space in my freezer to pop it there for 2 weeks before getting to work.
Two weeks later…
I decided from the burn test and feel of the jumper was likely made of wool and got to yarn sourcing. Simon wanted something discreet for the repairs and I was surprised how difficult sourcing a yarn match turned out to be!
I had a great colour match in my stash but it was a cotton yarn and was much shinier than the jumper (see image below). I found two wool options that were the closest I could muster, one in my stash and the other at Kathy’s Knits in Edinburgh, which is the one Simon decided to go for. Shout out to Kathy’s for always having such a great selection of yarns and lots in smaller balls, perfect for bigger mending jobs like this.
The cotton yarn
The two wool options - we went with the top one as it was closest to the original jumper in colour, even if a lighter shade.
Darning time!
I have never darned onto/into this knit structure before so it was a bit challenging to figure out the yarn weight, spacing and stitch length to use. If any knitters out there can recognise this knit type please do let me know, it was so unusual. I kept spotting more wee worn areas as I went, some of which I was able to do a little Swiss darning for.
Here’s some process pics and a short, edited video of me mending just two small holes in one of the cuffs. Most of the video is sped up but I also included some real speed footage in the video for people to get a sense of the delicate, slow process that is darning.
Elbow hole darn in progress
Starting to see it coming together
The finished jumper.
It took me 8 hours to in total to complete the repairs. I actually love the slightly lighter colour of yarn used for the repairs, these visible but very subtle mends often turn out to be some of my favourites.
Of course there’s a bunch of mended areas I forgot to photograph but I got the main parts covered!
Now for the best pictures of them all…
I’m so grateful that Simon managed to photograph the moment he delivered it to Meg and captured her beautiful joyous reaction. Meg kindly gave her permission for me to share these photos with you all. She thanked me for my work and even offered me round for a brew if I was ever in her neighbourhood (sadly I’m not - I’d love to meet her and learn more about her).
She also shared with Simon that her brother used to do work mapping the Arctic and he would’ve had this jumper with him then!
Now it’s been liberated from storage and repaired, Meg now wears it herself - and apparently a lot! I’ve heard from Simon a couple of times since and he tells me she’s been wearing it on multiple visits of his. I actually never knew whether it would be worn again, or by who, or if it would get stored away again - I feel like this is the best result I could’ve hoped for.
It’s been an absolute honour to be a small part of Meg’s story, her relationship with her brother and with Simon. Turns out mending is a great gift in many ways.
Thanks for reading about it folks.
With care, Em x