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.