Repairing my fingerless gloves
After having a green Christmas, winter has arrived in Canada at last. In the past week Ottawa has received a few dumps of snow. There is definitely an Arctic chill in the air. As a result I have been firing up the wood stove and layering up to try and keep warm. One of my favourite winter indoor accessories are these Possum Merino fingerless gloves. I have a couple pairs of these and sadly at some point some hungry moths have eaten some holes into this pair.
A few years ago I repaired my husband’s fingerless gloves by darning them with embroidery thread. The repairs were functional but overall I was unhappy with the results. This time around I wanted to try a felted repair. Unfortunately I could not find my felting needles. I am sure they are safely stored somewhere in my house.
Luckily I was able to purchase a few needles from Jan.
Next I needed to find some wool. I picked out this lovely Gotland fleece from Dover Farm Canada.
I quickly carded up a few locks using my hand cards.
I now had a mass of loose wool to use for my felt repairs.
With my tools gathered it was time to start work. I placed the glove onto a piece of foam (pool noodle). Then added some wool and started poking away with the felting needle.
And here is the first hole after repairing it with wool. The felting needle shows where the hole was. Now I have a nice solid glove again.
Here I have turned the glove inside out and I’m showing you the back of the repair. You can see the grey fuzz of the new patch of wool.
After I completed the first hole, the new few were quite easy to do. I will include a few more before and after photos below.
Starting patch 2. In my hand is the small bit of wool I will use for the repair.
Patch #2 after fixing. No more hole. Yeah!
Hole#3 before fixing.
Patch #3 repair in progress.
Patch #3 after a bit of poking.
Patch #3 on the inside of the glove.
Patch #3 from the side. This shows how fuzzy the inside of the mitt after adding the felted repair.
It only took me a couple of minutes to repair my gloves. Gathering the supplies (felting needles, wool and foam) took more work than the actual repair.
My fingerless gloves after being repaired. I fixed three moth holes and one thin spot that I found when checking over the mitts.
After the repair the gloves look a bit shabby.
But they feel comfortable.
I am delighted that my fingerless gloves are fixed and hope they give me many more years of service. I also hope the hungry moths stay far away. But if they don’t, at least I know I can fix any damage they do.
16 thoughts on “Repairing my fingerless gloves”
Great job Carlene.
I used to “darn” my husband’s lambswool socks in this way – he was for ever poking a toe through. I’d needle felt the fibre on and then throw the socks in the wash to finish the felting and hey presto! a mended sock. Unfortunately now he wears socks that look like wool but are cotton and it doesn’t work – and I do not darn socks!
Ann
I have been eyeballing those little darning patch tools but still haven’t invested in one. Maybe one day I will make the leap and give that a try. My previous mending attempt was rough darning with embroidery floss and it did stabilize the mitts, but it looked terrible.
Great way to keep those gloves going Carlene – so much better than discarding them 🙂
I love these mitts to bits. I found my first pair in a LYS. But now nobody carries them and so I have had to import my mitts from New Zealand. They are a bit spendy when you have to pay for shipping so I am glad I can extend their life.
Smart move Carlene, I wouldn’t have thought of needle felting the repair! I’ve a wet felted mitten that is wearing through in one spot and I’ve plans to sew on a felt appliqué as I don’t want to throw those out.
I hope your repair goes well. Are you thinking of dong one of those visible repairs that becomes a feature?
Thanks. It doesn’t need it just yet but when the time comes it will be exactly that!
Good job on the repairs Carlene! I should do this with my wool socks but haven’t tried it yet. Glad you were able to save your mitts.
Great job Carlene, I don’t like darning either. To make them look a little less shabby you could wet felt the patch to flatten it and get rid of the fuzzies. Next time you could use bright colours and make the patches in to flowers. Visible mending is trendy now.
I decided I didn’t have the patience or talent to try visible mending.
LOL I say I don’t have the patience for weaving and knitting.
I so love a good mending idea! Some of the clothes are so comfortable that one would not want a few holes to come in the way of wearing them forever!
great post Carlene. Actually it is just what I needed. I have a jumper of my husband’s in my repair basket for over a year. Every now and then I take it out, look at the hole in the elbow, realise that I do not have the correct colour yarn, plan to buy some, forget, and repeat the same process again and again. I have yarn in a similar colour, felting needles, a pool noodle. Once I get my house back from our decorators it will be all systems go. (because I can find absolutely NOTHING since they arrived …. even my reading glasses).
Thank you for the inspiration!
Helene
Let us know how your repair goes. I’m sure your hubby will be happy to have that sweater back.
Great job with that repair. I also am a great fan of repairing, darning, patching any garment that can be so fixed. Blooming moths too, they get everywhere. Now, I find myself sprinkling lavender oil in any nook and cranny where they might be hiding out. A bit of my wool carpet was eaten a few years ago, so I’d rather keep on top of the problem.
I buy Trichogramma wasp eggs every once in a while. The wasps hatch, mate and then lay eggs in the moth eggs. This helps break the moth reproductive cycle. It works pretty well. But it really is hard to completely eliminate moths. I have so much wool here. Plus we have cats so the moths will breed on cat hair under the sofa, etc. As much as I try to do a deep clean, it really is a difficult problem to conquer.