Darn Large Holes in Woolen Clothing

My favourite woolen jumper/sweater developed large holes and this Instructable demonstrates how I darned them in a rough fashion. I deliberately chose a contrasting coloured yarn to darn with because if I've taken great trouble to fix something then I want people to notice.

Wool yarn of similar texture to that of the clothing. And a needle with an eye big enough for 1 ply of the yarn.

Cut a 1m length of 4 ply yarn. Split it into 2 lengths of 2 ply and then split each of those to make 4 lengths of 1 ply. Thread one of those into a needle. The easiest way with woolly wool yarn is to pinch and bend it, wet it, snip any whiskers off and then squeeze it flat while pushing into the eye of the needle.

Just poke up and down through the fibres in the clothing all the way around the hole a couple of times. This helps prevent the hole widening and reinforces the edge.

Going over and under the clothing fibres where present, and just directly across the hole in columns, without pulling the hole together and distorting the shape.

Again going over and under through the clothing fibres, then either over and under or through the columns which were made in the previous step (splitting the fibres like Robin Hood split the arrow).

It's starting to take shape now. Repeat the darning of the columns, trying to go over and under and through the fibres made in the previous steps.

Now repeat the darning of the rows in the same fashion.

Rough and reliable, which is my style.

Longer hole in the armpit. Same procedure but without starting with a circle around the hole.

I like darning while listening to a podcast. Darning these large holes takes a lot of time (1.5 hours), however it requires very little mental effort so I can give my full attention to the podcast.