Crafts Archives - Tinking Turtle

An Example of a Great Repair Request

March 16, 2024 by Jennifer Raymond

Have you ever wondered what goes on before I take on a project to repair?

Before I accept an item to fix, I like to have a dialogue with clients about the piece, their goals, and my ability. All of this starts with the Repair Request I have on my Contact Me Page.

So what makes a good repair request? I often have to clarify to potential clients what I need to come up with an accurate estimate to repair the item they’d like me to work on. When you, the client, fills out our contact form, it asks you a series of questions such as:

How important is matching color or matching fiber content?
How important is it to you that the repair be machine washable vs. needing to be washed by hand?
How are you intending to use the item?
How fragile does the fabric appear?
How important to you is cost?
How important is it for you to preserve as much of the textile as possible?

When you answer these questions, they help me understand where your priorities lie in the the repair. Some repairs can be functionally stable, but the color or fiber content might not be the best match. Finding a good color match can be time consuming – are you willing to reimburse me as I purchase different yarns to find the best match for the repair? If you are intending to put the item on display vs use it everyday, that may influence how much of the object needs to be repaired – daily use means I should also prioritize areas I see are going thin, because with more use they may easily become holes soon.

One of the best ways I can get a sense of the item (aside from sending it to me) is to take good photographs. Take a look at the photos below as I show what was really helpful about them.

This is a great overall photo of the piece. I can see the pieces of paper that mark the holes, and I know where the holes are in relation to each other. It gives me a sense of the scale of the piece, the overall pattern, and if there are any edgings or other factors I have to take into account while working.

Great photo with a number. The ruler provides a lot of detail for me: I can tell the size of the yarn and how big the hole is. The hole is filling enough of the frame that I can zoom in to look at how the fibers are worn away (ie: frayed, cut, ragged).

Again, the ruler is super helpful. I can also tell the customer had their hands on either side stretching the fabric slightly so I could see everything.

So helpful to have number 3 and 4, which are close together, numbered! In cases where holes are close together, the location of the holes can impact how I approach the repairs, so it’s helpful to see that relational information.

Here the hole was small enough that I couldn’t see it in the overall picture, but can see it here. It was so helpful!

One of the other things this client did was mark each hole with a piece of string. This really saves both of us time. While sometimes people don’t realize there is a hole that I catch, the time it takes for me to find holes that the client already knows about is time I could use on doing repairs. Ultimately it saves us both time, and in the end, the client money.

Got a piece you’d like me to look at? Now that you have a sense of what I’m looking for, head over to Let’s Connect, and get the conversation started.

Re-Imagining A Crochet Tablecloth

July 1, 2022 by Jennifer Raymond

Getting creative with clients to turn a piece from something that can’t be used to something that can is one of my favorite types of collaborations.

This tablecloth had major damage around various part of the outer edge. However, like many crochet pieces, this one was modular – both in that the motifs used could be pulled out and put other places, and that each round of motifs and edging was not dependent on the last piece.

The first step for me was laying the piece out so I could take a careful look and mark and note the places that needed attention. There’s the obvious two holes along the edge, but there were also multiple smaller places that would need attention and reinforcement too.

The client preferred to be able to use the piece – no matter that we’d have to take off quite a bit of the outer edging. We could then use it as a table runner instead of a table cloth.

After taking a good close look at the piece, and multiple conversations with the client, we determined the place where we could take the least off. I’d still need to repair some small areas, but we had reduced the amount of work to something that was in the client’s budget.

Taking the edging off involved the use of a sharp pair of scissors and some time where I didn’t need to be interrupted. There was no room for mistakes! After several hours of carefully removing the outer edge, it was time to take a step back, take some pictures and consult with the client again.

Here we have the piece with the edging taken off – it really changed the appearance and presentation of the finished product. I think the cleaner unadorned edge gives it a bit more of a formal and modern look.

A quick and light steam press, shoring up some of the other areas, and it was ready to be sent on its way!

Preparing a Hole For Swiss Darning in a White Knit Throw

December 23, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

One of the first steps when I get a piece is an initial evaluation to make sure everything is ready to be worked on. It always helps when clients secure stitches and mark the areas that need to be worked on. In this paticular case, a hole had developed in a supremely soft knit afghan… clearly it needed repairing to be used this winter! I feel like the end of 2020 has been a year of wanting to snuggle under a blanket, especially as in the Northern Hemisphere it’s getting cold.

hole in white knit throw held together with safety pins

[Read more…]

Challenges in Restoring Crochet Rag Rugs

December 9, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

Normally I’m all about the yarn, but the most recent repair I’ve been working on is a set of three crochet rag rugs. Restoring these pieces took some real inguenuity and creativity, as I worked with the client to come to a solution. Let’s take a look at these three lovely rag rugs, and how we approached repairing them for further use!

These rugs started out with some pretty significant damage. Because they were made out of rags, some of the more delicate fabrics had worn out quickly, while much of the rug was still in really good shape. I thought when the client first sent picture that the rugs were made out of quilting cotton, but it became apparent once I had a them in my hands that the quilts were made from garments – most notably, men’s button up shirts. [Read more…]

Reweaving and Grafting a Green and Gold Asymetrical Shawl

November 25, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

It seems like the entire fall has been consumed with white sweaters: I had three repairs of Irish Knit sweaters in a row, which is one of the more boring things to write about. But my latest repair is a lovely green and gold shawl that I thought was paticularly interesting, and I thought I’d share it here in addition to writing about it on Instagram.

This piece had five rows of stitches ripped into a hole: it had caught on something (dryer? door?) and gotten the hole. Being that it was in the colors of the client’s daugther’s team, it needed to be repaired.

This is one of the repairs that is just a joy to work on: the client, D, had sent the piece to me with the loose stitches still on locking stitch markers. She had taken my Darn It class with me at Rhinebeck, so she knew the drill: catch the stitches so they don’t drop and make the hole bigger. It meant I could dive right into the repair without having to fish around ladering the stitches back into place. (Which, have I mentioned lately that my Darn It class is both on Interweave and Craftsy?)

It was time to get to work.

Garter stitch is one of the prime times where I like to use a single long-ish strand of the repair yarn if I can. While many of the orional techniques of doing swiss darning call for a new strand of yarn on each row, I find that leaves a lot of ends to weave in, and can make the fabric very dense in those areas. Trying to keep the ends pretty short, I only opened up the hole a little, working duplicate stitch along the sides and then knitting across the hole before moving up to the next row. I did that for the first few rows, and then grafted the last row together.

Then it was time to weave in the ends.

I feel like often most of the attention I give to pieces is the process of repairing the hole, which is important! But, I find it equally as satisfying to weave in the ends – that’s when a hole is truly repaired. I feel like sometimes garter stitch can be a little tricky to weave in all the ends, so I chose to split the yarn into smaller strands to try and hide the ends a little better and keep the fabric from getting too thick where the old and new yarn overlapped.

Finally, it was time to fuss with the tension to make sure that everything was laying flat and even.

A blast of steam to “convince” the newly woven in ends that they should stay where I put them, and this piece was ready to send in the mail. A satisfying way to leave things!

The Largest Textile I’ve Blocked to Date: A Knit Lace Chuppah

February 27, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

A while back I was contacted by a young woman getting ready for her wedding. She had a rather unusal request: she needed a lace knit chuppah for her wedding blocked. Part of a traditional Jewish wedding is the chuppah: a canopy under which the couple stands during the wedding cerenony. The chuppah has a lot of symbolism. Some chuppahs can be very plain, but many of them are passed through the family, and are elaborate family herilooms made of lace and embroidery are not uncommon.

When I first spoke to the young lady, she admitted that she had gotten in touch with a few other finishers, and none of them could take on an item so large. She estimated that the finished piece would be about 10 by 10 feet. I have to admit, I went through the house with a measuring tape, measuring each room in my house to see if I could fit something so large. Luckily, our kitchen with all the furniture out would work. It was 14×14 feet – which would give me just enough room to be able to walk around it when the piece was laid out.

[Read more…]

Mending a Midwest Inspried Crochet Afghan

February 13, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

This midwest inspried afghan had a lot of damage done to it over the years, and the owner contacted me about doing some repairs and mending to bring it back up to shipshape! This was an interesting piece – each row was done through the back loop (hence the distinct ridges, and each row the yarn was cut on the end, resulting in the creator only ever going from right to left when working on it. The cut ends became part of the fringe.

It did make the repairs a lot easier to do, as I didn’t need to flip the blanket over for each row. Working through the back loop does mean that the last row invoves a lot of sewing, though.

The two holes right above the the black line were so close together it made more sense to pull out the yarn between them and work them as one large hole. I decided to tackle that first.

To keep track of each stitch, I used locking stitch markers to hold each leg of the single crochet together. This will help when I reweave the last row.

Nearly done! After working each of the rows, I’m finishing up by joining together the last row. I had to take out the black row later in the process as it had more damage to it than I realized.

Now I’ve got everything worked up and the ends woven in. I mark each area of repair with a piece of yarn, so the repairs are easier to find. When the clients get the repaired piece they can take the markers out.

See that the stitches look a little more lively where I’ve done the repairs? This will improve as the piece gets used, and the newer stitches gain some wear.

Now I’m tackling the repair that is further up in the blanket. You’ll notice there’s the larger hole, and to the left, another smaller hole. It made sense in this case to also pull out and combine the holes. The yarn in between the two holes was worn away enough that I was concerned about its stablility.

As in many repairs, this is a slow process of just adding the new yarn to the old, crocheting across the row, and then sewing and reweaving the old to the new. What you can’t see on the backside is all the ends I still need to weave in.

And now we’re at the end: the hole is closed up and the ends are woven in. A bit of yarn to mark the spot. Now it’s time for this afghan to have a quick wash before it leaves to go back to its owner.

Long time, no see

January 9, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

It’s been nearly a year and a half since I blogged last. That isn’t to say I haven’t been doing things… quite the contrary. But… I haven’t had the mental ablity or bandwith to blog.

After Turtle #2 was born, I cut my hours with the business back. Way back. There were a variety of factors, but a lot of it turned into wanting and needing to spend more time focused on family and other goals, and less on the business. Tinking Turtle went into matinence mode. I was doing just enough to keep the business going, but a lot of things, including blogging, got cut back.

It wasy the right choice at the time, but we’ve shifted to a new time, and the plan is to bring the business back from life support to more solidly into part-time. I’ve missed devoting time to Tinking Turtle, and I’m really glad to be getting back.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a bunch of different projects I worked on while I was away that I want to share. Call it a highlights reel of the past two years. A lot of it is going to focus on repair work, because that’s where a lot of my time has been devoted, but I hope it will be interesting!

Much Beloved Heirloom Crochet Tablecloth Made New

January 6, 2020 by Jennifer Raymond

rectangular lace crochet tablecloth with center border and then outer border made up of flower motifs

One of my favorite repairs, recently, has been a series of two different crochet lace tablecloths I took on. These two pieces were both at least 30 or more years old, and were in pretty good condition. Frank from Textile Restoration Inc in Chicago had sent the client my way. I’ll highlight the first of the tablecloths today, and I’ll be highlighting the second of them a little later.

The first tablecloth, which I thought of as “Field of Flowers” when I worked on it, was a huge piece, at least 5 1/2 feet by 4 feet. It was made of a center pannel of 4 x 12 motfs, an inner border of triangles, an outer set of motifs 4 deep, and then larger second outer border.

Most of the holes were areas where motifs that had been joined as the tablecloth was worked had come undone and unraveled – not uncommon, even in pieces where every single end is tightly woven in. The areas where two motifs join together tend to be an area that recieves more stress.

[Read more…]

Darn It! How to Repair your Knitting Online Workshop Available

October 8, 2018 by Jennifer Raymond

I’ve been working on my new class from Interweave, Darn It! How to Repair your Knitting for several years. Since I began offering repair courses, I’ve wanted to find a way to get this information to students who were not in my geographic area. This started when I posted about getting a copy of Rena Crockett’s Flawless Knit Repair. People from all parts of the globe would email asking how they could get a copy, or asking if I’d be willing to scan a PDF version of the book. (I was never comfortable with that solution, as I make my living off of my copyright, and I’ve never been able to contact Crockett or her realitives to see if they would be OK with that action.)

But in the back of my brain I was trying to figure out how I could create my own, readily available version of Crockett’s book. Becasue as much as Crockett’s book was instrumental in my own start into repairing things, I’d found some other methods of working that I wanted to share with people. More than a year ago I teamed up with Interweave to try and create a course that would answer the need I’d seen.

I’m proud to announce that Darn It: How to Repair your Knitting is finally available! This class covers a lot of ground: repairing knit fabrics, purl fabrics, cables, lace and (my favorite!) colorwork (which has some special challenges). It breaks down, step-by-step, how to approach various reparis, and how to make them nearly invisible (if that’s your desire).

Let’s look at what the class includes:

In This Online Workshop You’ll Learn:

A variety of repair techniques including duplicate and Kitchener stitch
How to fix holes before they even happen
Step-by-step repairs for stockinette, Fair Isle, cables, and lace knitting
The secret to weaving in ends invisibly
Tips for sourcing repair yarn and mimicking original yarns in older or heirloom pieces

Lesson Outline:

Intro
Darning vs. Reweaving
A Stitch In Time: Finding Holes Before They Happen
The Duplicate Stitch
Repairing Stranded Colorwork
Kitchener Stitch
Repairing Cables
Mending a Hole in Stockinette
Weaving in Ends
Repairing Lace
Conclusion

Skill Level:

Any! Students should have basic knitting skills and some knowledge of knitting cables and simple lace.

Optional Materials for Practice Swatches:

Small amounts of worsted-weight yarn in several colors for practice swatches and repair; Size 7 or 8 knitting needles; locking stitch markers; crochet hook; tapestry needle and sharp-tipped needle; Size 7 or 8 double-pointed knitting needles

Sign me up!

Thank you for visiting!

Tinking Turtle

In This Online Workshop You’ll Learn:

Lesson Outline:

Skill Level:

Optional Materials for Practice Swatches:

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