30 September 2026
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Author: Roosmarijn van Soest, Naaierij.
Photography: Lotte van Uittert
Wool is a beautiful natural fibre that can be very durable. Unfortunately, knitwear can also be fragile, and moths love to feast on it. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to repair woollen knits. As a beginner, it can be tricky to know which technique suits your garment best.
In the first Naaierij series on shop.cosh.eco, we cover hand-sewing techniques. Four of them are well-suited for woollen clothing: Mending with Embroidery, Darning Wool, Repairing Wool with Needle Felting and Tucking Away a Snag. Below, I go through each technique one by one and explain when to use it.
Snag repair
You probably know the feeling: your clothes catch on something and you’re left with a loop or a loose thread. That loop is called a snag. It doesn’t just look untidy, it’s impractical too. Before you know it, you catch it again and it gets worse. Simply cutting off a snag isn’t an option. Knitwear is made of interlocking loops, so as soon as you cut one, the fabric starts to unravel, a hole appears, and you’re worse off than before.
In this video, you’ll learn how to pull a snag through to the back of the garment. You’re essentially hiding the problem by keeping it safe from anything it could catch on. And because the snag now sits at the back, it’s invisible.
This technique only works for a snag where the rest of the knit is still intact.
Darning
Darning is one of the oldest repair techniques out there. It was mainly used on socks, but it can also be a really fun technique for sweaters, for example. With this technique, you fill the hole by creating a small woven patch. First, you set up a grid of lines, then you weave over and under them.
This technique is suitable for knitted socks, jumpers, trousers, gloves, hats and scarves. You can make it visible (visible mending) by using two contrasting colours, or invisible by working with a colour that matches the garment.
Darning often involves a darning egg, which makes the job a little easier. It isn’t essential, though, and you can manage perfectly well without one. Sometimes you’ll need to repair a hole where you can’t fit a darning egg behind it, such as the finger of a glove.
Darning works on small as well as large holes. Small holes are much easier, because they’re more manageable. For large holes, make sure you have a needle that’s as long as the woven patch you’re creating.
Repairing wool with needle felting
Photos: Lotte van Uittert
Needle felting is one of my favourite repair techniques. It’s really easy to do and gives you a lovely result quickly. I learned needle felting from the ultimate wool felt expert, Heleen Klopper of Woolfiller. She introduced me to the possibilities of carded wool and taught me the best technique for repairing wool beautifully. That’s the technique I show you in the video Wool Repair with Needle Felting.
Needle felting works on knitted wool and on boiled wool, which is the most pleasant to work with. You can use this technique on socks, jumpers, knitted trousers, gloves, hats, scarves, woollen children’s outfits and woollen coats.
To use this technique, you need to place a sponge under your work. That means it isn’t always possible to apply in small corners of a garment, such as the finger of a glove, although if you can fit a sponge inside the finger, it works.
Because needle felting works so well on boiled wool, it’s ideal for coats or other garments made from this material. If you’re repairing a hole in a lined coat, make sure the lining isn’t between your work and the sponge. Unpick a small section of the lining so you can place the sponge properly behind the hole.
Needle felting works on any size. It doesn’t matter how big the hole is, as long as you make sure the repair is sturdy enough to wear the garment again. Above all, the felted patch and the edges of the hole need to bond well.
Mending with embroidery
When I mend with embroidery, I usually do it on woven garments. I choose woven fabrics because they have no stretch, which makes them easier to work with and keeps the embroidery looking good. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible on other fabrics. You can also mend woollen clothing, woven or knitted, with embroidery. In that case, you can choose embroidery silk or darning wool. When embroidering knitted wool, darning wool often looks better, because it matches the texture of the garment.
I wouldn’t choose embroidery for large holes, because it’s difficult to close a big hole with embroidery alone. One option is to close the hole first, for example by darning or needle felting, and then embroider over it. For small holes, a backstitch combined with a satin stitch (see video B of Mending with Embroidery) is often enough.
Embroidery works well on socks, jumpers, trousers, gloves, hats, scarves, woven blazers and woollen coats.
When repairing a lined garment, make sure you don’t sew the lining to your work. Open up a small section of the lining so you can easily reach the back of the hole.
Tips to prevent moths
Strong scents
Moths dislike strong scents such as lavender, cedarwood, bay leaf or camphor. Place some between your clothes, or fill a breathable bag and hang it among your clothes.
Vacuum storage
In summer, when you’re not wearing your woollen pieces, store them away neatly. Put them in a vacuum bag and store them airtight, out of reach of moths. Before you do, check that no moth or moth egg is secretly hiding in your clothes. Unfortunately, it does happen, as a customer once told me. Before storing clothes for a longer period, always make sure they’re clean, so everything is fresh and washed before it goes into the bag.
Airing and the freezer
Try to wash wool as little as possible. Wool naturally contains lanolin (wool grease), which repels dirt and bacteria. Often, hanging your clothes out for a while (preferably outdoors) is enough to make them smell fresh again. Frequent washing damages the delicate fibres and increases the risk of shrinking or felting. You can easily wear woollen garments (such as merino) around 15 times before they need a wash. When you do wash, check the care label carefully. A good alternative to washing is hanging your clothes outside or putting them in the freezer for a while. This helps reduce bacteria and unpleasant odours, and it also kills moths and moth eggs.
Clean out your wardrobe
Give your wardrobe a thorough clean every now and then. A seasonal look at what’s inside never hurts. What do you wear, and what stays in the back of your closet? What could be passed onto to your sister, a friend or your neighbour, or to a swap or second-hand shop? When you do this, take all your clothes out, clean the shelves and compartments with a cloth and the vacuum cleaner, shake out your clothes, perhaps even air them for a while, and finally fold or hang them back up neatly. Moths love peace and quiet, dark spots and still air, so they won’t appreciate a thorough clean like this. Air your wardrobe regularly and leave the doors open from time to time.
Stains
Wool hardly ever needs washing. You only need to wash it when you have visible stains, and even then you don’t always need to wash the whole garment. Ideally, treat the stain straight away. With food stains, though, it’s best to put the whole garment in the washing machine to avoid attracting moths. Always check the care label and preferably use a special wool detergent, for example, from Dilling or Bever, on a wool programme at a low spin speed.
A sheet of white paper
Worried that a moth is munching away in your wardrobe? Place a white sheet of A4 paper at the bottom of your wardrobe. If, after a while, you see tiny grains or webbing, you know there are active moth larvae at work.
