Moth holes

More About Patching Moth Holes with Needle Felting

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Introduction:

I took my favorite sweater out to pack for my trip to Venice and Basal this month. I hadn’t worn it all summer and hadn’t washed it at the end of spring. I was surprised to see several moth holes! I knew I had to patch it before they got worse and wash it and perhaps spray it.

This shows the patches I made. I didn’t have the exact right color, but the patches look pretty good even so. At least it saved the sweater. I’m told often at the seams you can find some loose fibers. All these seams were overcast.

I used fibers from roving I got from Dharma trading Co.

I also bought yarn that had fibers, but that didn’t work—the lines of the yarn were distracting.

You really need very, very thin layers of fibers as you do the needle felting. These fibers are ready to cover the hole with more ready for subsequent THIN layers.

You need a needle felting pad and a special needle for needle felting.  I’ve seen Styrofoam used for pads, too.

Put the pad under the hole and lay very thin fibers around the hole and tap the needle up and down  a few times just to attach the fibers. Note how fine the fibers are when first you poke the needle up and down to cover the hole.

The first layer is thin and is the size just to cover the hole.

Fold over some more fine fibers and needle felt them and fold over more layers of fibers. You don’t need a lot—just enough to secure the hole. Discard any extra fibers. I was able to shape some of the patches into squares as I got more experience.

The back of the cloth will look fuzzy. Needle felt it to bring it to the right side and finish the patch by poking the fibers back to the wrong side, so the patch is  relatively flat. I previously made a post on needle felting patches, but this time they are better, I think. With experience I realized that the trick is to use thin—almost whispy—fibers. See the link to the previous post where I also attached patches. HERE 

Mending Moth Holes with Needle Felting

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While staying at home, I’ve been really almost too busy–maybe procrastinating getting to work on creative stuff like finishing the pile of weaving projects on my table. I had told a friend who wanted her sweater holes fixed that I could do it and it has been sitting on my desk for a few days. That only took a few minutes to do but then I thought it could be a good post. Taking photos, deciding which to use, writing text for each, labeling photos to texts, email all to my tech guy.  Whew!! The day is about over and I promised myself I’d watch a movie tonight (it’s a choice between that and the Met opera that’s on the computer every night. Go to: www.metopera.org. There’s a different one every night, they are free and you can play them anytime of day or night! The scheduled ones are great ones! The next post will be on weaving–I promise.  Peggy


Moths seem to love to eat cashmere and one hole can ruin a whole sweater. I learned this from Yoshiko Wada and at Dharma Trading Company San Rafael, CA. www.dharmatrading.com  I’ve also knitted patches which you can see in the last post.
Here is the equipment needed. The fiber comes from a spinner or spinning/needle felting store. I got this from Windrush Farms at my farmer’s market.  www.windrushfarm.wordpress.com She sells small amounts of colored fiber for felting. I have used a brush or styrofoam instead of this brush-like tool that comes with needle felting supplies. I like it a lot—stays put—and I don’t poke my fingers.

Pull the fibers apart and crisscross them and make a small loose ball or wad.

Put the fiber on the wrong side of the sweater and poke all over the area with the felting needle. Watch your fingers it is SHARP!

I thought mine needed an extra wad so I worked over the area again on the right side. Check the right side and if a few hairs, poke them to the wrong side.

My fleece didn’t match as well as I’d like, so you may not want to do it on the obvious places. However, the hole(s) will not get bigger and the sweater is stable.

I preferred to knit patches and needle felted them in place, using the back side of the knitted patch. Look closely and you can see another hole mended just with white fiber and needle felted—not too bad. Use a fuzzy or fluffy yarn. I loved this kid mohair swear and couldn’t bear losing it. I made extra patches as a “design feature”.