This cardigan is going on to its third or fourth life. We got it from my sister-in-law when her kids outgrew it. Neither Ingrid nor Adrian were too fond of knitted cardigans, so we passed it on to a friend. Now it came back, far outgrown again, and unfortunately with a moth-eaten hole on one side.

I like colourful mends, but sometimes a discreet approach works better. I’ve been watching Instagram reels about mending knitwear and learned how to basically recreate the knit fabric. Now I got to try it out for real. It starts out as duplicate stitch around the edges of the hole, where the original material is still whole, and then just continues out into the nothingness with pins for temporary support. The gray wool I had at home was a near-perfect match so the end result is almost indistinguishable from the original fabric (although just a bit thicker, so you can feel it more than you can see it).

Now the cardigan can be passed along to the next baby cousin.

I forgot to take a “before” picture so here’s one from mid-mend and one of the finished result.