When the end of winter comes, I wash all my woolies, look for holes, wear and tear and try to mend it. Most of my darning happens in between and concerns socks. But then there are the various holes in sweaters. I usually use similar coloured yarn and just weave. But this year I went bold.
Hubby's deak at his job had the tendency to eat shirts and sweaters. Most shirts are chafed around the belly (probably because he tends to sit rather close to the deask) and almost all sweaters get tears at the right arm. Luckily for us, the company hubby works for, got new desks which don't eat sweaters habitually. But there was one left, I needed to mend.
This is the inside of the sweater. You can see how the desk munched away at the arm. The yarn was too fine and the holes too many so that I tried another approach to mending.
I knit a whole patch from some singles yarn I've spun and sewed it on. Good enough for home.
One of my favourite sweaters showed serious wear and tear. I've knit the sweater 25 years ago from yarn I got from ripping my back then partner's jumper. Because of the cable pattern, the yarn was not enough so I got some black yarn and added the stripes. Now the hems were frayed and I needed to do something. There was some wear below the arms as well and a small hole. I mended the thinning patches below the arms conventionally by weaving, the same with the small hole. But the cuffs with their ribbing were a problem. I could have used swiss darning, imitating each knit and purl stitch or I could have just ripped the cuffs and knit new ons. I chose decorative darning.
About every five years, I need a new jeans. By then, the old one is worn out. Width is no problem but length is. I prefer 33" long legs but usually you get either 32 or 34". So I buy 34" trousers and cut them off.