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.