Monica Knits

There was so much interest in the repair of the snagged Koigu neck cozy that I thought I'ld offer an article that provided techniques for more challenging repairs. I had knitted a pair of basic gloves--the first glove was a standard width, but I have narrow hands and long fingers, so I knitted the second glove narrower, from the wrist to the thumb. I liked the fit so much better that I decided to make the first glove narrower as well. Rather than unwind the glove to the fingers and reknit the wrist and hand, I decided this would be a good example to illustrate how to alter the width or length of a glove in the middle by cutting the glove and grafting it back together. These same principles can be used for other garments and repairs. Read more ... for stepwise illustrations.

Related Post
Grafting (Joining) Two Stocking Stitch Pieces Together.

Overview Click on any thumbnail to view a larger image.
This exercise was for illustration purposes. The glove was narrowed 3/8" in circumference around the hand.
Since I knit quickly it would have been faster for me to knit from the fingers down rather than grafting the top and bottom together.

This technique is useful if you want to lengthen or shorten a garment in the middle, say a dress or sweater. The principles also apply for inserting a patch, in a well-loved sweater, if a damaged area is larger than a few stitches.

Knitting in Reverse or Deconstructing

1. Place a stitch marker on the palm side of the fingers. The 4" cuff fit perfectly so I cut the glove apart at the thumb and unravelled the yarn back to the wrist (before the hand width increases.)
2. Stop unravelling about 2 rows above your destination and load the stitches back on needles. Some will slip, don't worry, just load them. It also doesn't matter if they are twisted at this point, just focus on getting them on the needles. Since I was making the glove narrower, the yarn recovered from unravelling was more than enough to reknit the hand and thumb and graft the two pieces back together (image 2).
3. Knit in reverse - removing stitches for about 1 round. This will place the stitches in the correct orientation and also allow you to recover slipped stitches. Click on the link: "Undoing Knit Stitches (Knit in Reverse)" for stepwise instructions and photos.
4. For the upper glove, place the stitches on two stitch holders or two circular needles after knitting in reverse for about a row.

Related Posts
Undoing Knit Stitches (Knit in Reverse)
Undoing Purl Stitches (Purl in Reverse)

Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Grafting

Reconstruction

1. After the hand had been unravelled to the wrist, it was reknitted, narrower than before. There was enough yarn, when unwound to reknit the hand and then graft the 2 pieces back together. (Image 2.)
2. Cotton crochet yarn was threaded through the loops for fitting and as a safety line, since these stitches are difficult to see (dark blue mohair). The markers at the sides were placed for alignment. (Image 3.)
3. Additional stitch markers have been placed around the circumference to hold the two glove pieces in alignment for grafting. (Image 4).
4. Because the dark, fuzzy, small stitches were difficult to see, I rolled a face cloth into a cylinder, stuffed it in the glove and used it to pin stitches in position so that I wouldn't have to hunt for the loops. This also prevented twisting the stitches, which could easily happen, since they were small and difficult to see (unlike the grafting stitches in the lace towel). The top pin is holding an upper loop open in position. The second pin is used to indicate where I stopped stitching (bottom piece). You can see a number of completed invisible grafting stitches on the right. Please note that I started on the palm side so that I was in peak stitch rhythm by the time I was grafting the most visible side of the glove. At this stage, about 60% of the glove has been grafted back together. (Image 5.)
5. Position for start of bottom loop. The yarn is coming up from the pinned loop and is threaded back to front (towards the viewer). (Image 6.)
6. A flower pin is placed down through the loop holding it the position shown. The advantage with this dark yarn is that you don't have to be able to see the loop, you just need to follow the path of the pin. (Image 7.)
7. The yarn has come up through the bottom loop and is threaded down through the half completed upper loop, following the pin shaft. (Image 8.)

Image 5 Image 6 Image 7 Image 8