Attack of the Moths
Moths have invaded! Follow Liz Haywood’s heroic fight back against this almost invisible foe…but how will it end?
The backstory
Pre-pandemic, Liz began knitting a vest in some lovely natural brown wool her grandma brought back from a New Zealand holiday. It was nearly finished when Liz got long covid and stopped. It fell down the side of the bed and lay in a dusty heap for some years.
The narrative
Just lately, Liz had a rare clean up and retrieved it. Moths had made a hole under one arm, about 2 x 3 stitches.
Possibly, the moths had had an all-over nibble because it looked to be shedding gritty little crumbs.
Will the whole thing fall apart if Liz washes it?
Liz finished knitting it (it only needed a cast off!!!), wove in the ends, and then looked at the hole. Ever the optimist, she saw an opportunity to try an invisible knitted-in mend; she’d never done one before.
A poke around on YouTube brought up loads of “5-minute craft” type videos, very soothing to watch, which fell into two camps: (1) The Classic method: creating a support with temporary thread and swiss darning over it, like this, and (2) weaving loose strands horizontally across the hole, then picking up stitches with a crochet hook like fixing a ladder like this.
But all this looked a little too easy and Liz had questions:
What happens to the tiny ends each side of the hole? If they’re left then another hole will appear. Should the hole be enlarged to deal with the ends? What if the moth hole isn’t a neat square like theirs – should it be made square first?
The hero appears
Enter Norman of Nimble Needles, knitting extraordinaire, whose comprehensive video validated Liz’s fears and answered every question and more.
Liz settled down in front of the computer with reading glasses, a powerful headtorch and the hole.
She discovered it sure is harder to use matching, dark coloured, yarn instead of a contrast!
Liz started by making the hole bigger…
…and securing the ends to weave in later.
She did the actual mend, then went on to tidy up the loose ends.
Her stitches were correct although the tension wasn’t great. A press with a damp cloth helped it look better.
The reverse side was nothing pretty, but it never is, is it?
A happy ending
Liz was successful! She thought she might add some sort of front closure, maybe crochet some loops and sew on buttons.
The mend was barely noticeable, especially by Liz when she was wearing it.
Liz’s vest lived happily ever after, and the moral of the story was to never let woolly knitted things get into this kind of moth situation.