All the cashmere sweaters in the pile above have holes in one or both armpits, where an inherently weak seam tends to tear, no matter how careful I am when taking them off. You know that moment: you’re trying to get one arm out, or lift the whole thing over your head, and suddenly you feel something give.
Most of them also have a hole worn through at the left elbow. Always the left, though it’s been years since I wrote at a desk. Perhaps it’s during countless dinners at the kitchen table, doing the The New York Times Spelling Bee while my mom slowly makes her way through her meal, that I’ve leaned on and worn through those sleeves.
The sweaters are from Macy’s Charter Club line, made affordable in late fall when they go on sale for Christmas. A few of the earliest ones I bought have been handed down to Poppy. (What cat doesn’t like a cashmere-dedicated spot on the bed?) But recently some darning videos found their way into my Instagram feed, and I deeply regret not saving the link to a mesmerizing reel where the person used a colorful variety of threads to mend an otherwise solid sweater with a whimsical—and seamless—patch of plaid.
No way I was spending the time and effort required to develop that technique. But the idea of some basic mending got stuck in my head and I ordered supplies.
Stubbornly working from what I could recall, it was harder to do than I’d imagined, and I wound up essentially embroidering a circular patch like some tiny allusion to Mondrian’s round compositions. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I was stitching away, which—once I got into it—I did totally enjoy.
Okay—so that’s hardly a work of art, with nothing really Mondrian about it, and you can see where the sleeve simply gave way further down. Come fall, I’ll probably just buy new sweaters. But for a moment, of all the unfixable things in the world, it felt good to repair this small one.
The Japanese philosophy, I think, is that when a cup is broken and glued back together, one doesn't try to make it look seamless, but to celebrate it with a distinctly different color. The same for sweaters? :-)
Love this and you, Sue Mell. It reminds me how happy I felt when I found adhesive patches I cut into any shape I chose to repair holes in my down parka. xoxo