I enjoy when my husband brings me items of his clothing to fix for him, because it makes me feel like a Good Wife when I do a Good Job and hand him back an item that was fixed with my love. So when he brought me this charcoal colored merino wool jersey to fix, I received it with a sense of delight. I managed to convince him to let me put a heart motif over the torn section, but he convinced me in return that the heart patch must match the jersey’s color. Not, alas, in a sparkly light blue.
Crochet Pattern for the Heart-Shaped Patch
Ch4, ss into 1st ch, ch2.
Row 1: 11dc into center, ss into top of the 1st ch2 to close the row.
Row 2: hdc, (2dc, 2tc, 2dc) into next st, (dc, hdc) into next st, sc, hdc, (dc, 2tc, dc) into next st, hdc, sc, (hdc, dc) into next st, (2dc, 2tc, 2dc) into next st, hdc, ss to close.
I used an incredibly thin and fluffy yarn from Ice Yarns called Kid Mohair Fine in a deep gray, almost black color. After doubling up the yarn, I worked with a 2.5mm crochet hook, which is also known as a UK size 12 or US size 2. This combination of yarn and hook size resulted in a thin fabric that would suit this project well, because I didn’t want to create a thick pad of yarn in the mended area.
When I had finished crocheting the heart, I left a long tail, over three feet, (around one metre) to use in attaching the crochet heart shape to the knitted fabric.
Darning and weaving the hole in the knitted fabric
This sweater was made using a fine, lace-weight yarn and the knitted fabric is quite thin. I knew that I would need to darn it well to prevent the hole from growing, but that if I used too much yarn in the darning process, the addition of the crochet heart would make a big lump on my husband’s shoulder that he wouldn’t enjoy.
So, I darned quite loosely, first stitching horizontally over the holes, and then weaving my needle through the stitches vertically to create a new section of woven fabric to fill the holes.
Sewing on the Crochet Heart
Using an embroidery needle, I stitched the crochet heart shape to the jersey, making sure that the heart covered the mending work so it would be hidden from view.
I then embroidered chain stitch around the edge of the heart to cover up the stitches I made when sewing the patch to the clothing. The embroidery chain also created a visible edge to the heart, which looked a bit… mushy, I suppose, because of the furry nature of the yarn I used. A less fluffy yarn would have created a clearer heart shape with more stitch definition, but this was the most appropriate color and weight of yarn that I had on hand.
