Fig. 368. Repairing plain knitting.
For this purpose, you must clear the loops, by ravelling them out top and bottom, and slip them on to knitting needles. The loops that are to be connected must lie exactly opposite to each other. Enter your threaded needle upwards from below through the first disengaged upper loop, and slip it off the knitting needle, then enter the needle, downwards from above through the first lower loop, and upwards from below through the next, and draw out just enough thread to make the new loop the same size as the old ones. Then enter the needle, downwards from above, through the same upper loop you took up before, taking up also the one next to it, and passing your needle through it from underneath; draw out the thread to form the new loop and descend again to the next, and so on.
Repairing purled knitting (fig. [369]).—To repair ribbed surfaces consisting of alternate rows of plain and purl, proceed as follows: hold the article so that the row of purled stitches is exactly opposite the upper part. Enter your needle upwards from below, through the first loop of the upper part; join the two lower loops together as in fig. [368]; carry the needle upwards again, and enter it upwards from below through the first loop of the upper part and downwards from above, through the loop next it. Join the lower loops again, as in plain knitting.
Fig. 369. Repairing purled knitting.
Disengaging the loops for darning (fig. [370]).—Where the threads are broken, new loops have to be made, and the broken ones ravelled out and cut, so that the horizontal loops may stand out clear and distinct. Cut the threads on the vertical sides so that the loops form an edge and the hole is square, clear two or four loops in the corners of the hole, fold them in and fasten them off at the back by a stitch or two. The darns we are next going to describe should be made upon a ball to prevent drawing the threads too tightly.
Fig. 370. Disengaging the loops for darning.
Darning on threads stretched horizontally (figs. [371] and [372]).—Carry a horizontal thread across on the wrong side, in the place of each broken thread, securing it in the sound part of the stocking, about two threads from the edge of the hole. When you have made this foundation, put the needle in on the right side near the stitch that is nearest to the sound part on the left, fig. [371].