Here's my holy grail of clothes repair, getting this sweater back in wearable condition. There's about 6 moth holes left (that I know of 😩). One repair's still underway on that lower right quadrant.

It's angora wool, which comes from rabbits! Angora's really lovely, soft, lightweight, & fluffy.

Every time I set it down, the cat comes to sit on it instantaneously. This has complicated repair efforts somewhat

As of 2 days ago this poor thing was riddled with moth holes.

It belonged to Rob's mom, and she passed away from cancer in 2010. You can't exactly stay on top of a demanding wash/storage routine for nice woolens when you're that sick, so moths got into it.

Nobody in the family had time to patch it up, Rob & I were in grad school at the time, & it's ok to have moth-eaten clothes in grad school. So we wound up with the sweater full of holes.

So I've been wearing it on & off when it gets really cold in the winter. But at some point you want to patch up the holes, for the structural integrity of the sweater if nothing else.

Now that I'm going over it closely to find all the holes & thin spots, I'm finding places where Rob's mom previously did her own invisible mends.

Susan was all about needlework, & patching up holes is a lot more fatigue-friendly than the wash-&-store routines it takes to prevent moth holes in the first place. So she was doing her best to stay ahead of the holes despite being sick 😭

You can juuust see a few long stitches here. It's a different technique & thread weight than I've been using.

Anyway, here's some repairs in progress. This is the highest concentration of holes in the sweater, right front & center on the left front shoulder.

The first mend I ever tried on this sweater is already done in the 1st pic, over on the right side. It's very chunky, puckery, & noticeable. Given enough time I might wanna redo that one later.

@sarahtaber I have a huge basket full of clothes that need mending and I just haven't had time to get to. I'm not very good at it either, though slowly improving (I think). It's a very satisfying if time consuming task. Just wondering if you have good books or videos you can recommend that take you through the darning process. That's definitely one I haven't really got the hang of...

@Ruth_Mottram @sarahtaber Repair What You Wear has some good free tutorials https://repairwhatyouwear.com/mending-tutorials/