Medinilla Moth Hole Repair Jumpers

Amidst the lush and verdant green,
A burst of color can be seen,
A flower so bright, it catches the eye,
A vibrant soul, never to shy.


Skyer

One was a Vivienne Westwood jumper, orange with green back. The other was a Paul Smith jumper, Burgundy with navy and pink sleeves. The customer told me that he liked tropical flowers, in particular Medinilla Magnifica. So I designed him an embroidery design around this that could be broken down into smaller parts so we could use them across both pieces to disguise all the holes.

  • A hand peels back a cut out of an embroidery design placed on a burgundy knit fabric with a moth hole visible under the cut out
  • A Burgundy jumper with navy and pink sleeves lies on a grey background with paper medinilla flower designs pinned to it
  • A detailed photo of the medinilla design embroidered onto navy fabric as a sample in red, pink and navy machine embroidery threads
  • A detailed photo of the medinilla design embroidered onto navy fabric as a sample in red, pink and navy machine embroidery threads
  • A detailed photo of the medinilla design embroidered onto navy fabric as a sample in red, pink and navy machine embroidery threads
  • Two machine embroidery threads lie on a pink knitted sleeve of a jumper with moth holes in it. Paper cut outs of the embroidery design are pinned into place over the moth holes
  • Burgundy knitted fabric pinned with yellow headed pins is being embroidered in an embroidery machine with navy blue thread in a leaf shape.

The Paul Smith Jumper had lots of little holes, three very obvious ones on the body and about ten on the sleeve. This was more than I had thought there would be from the original photos so we had to amend the design a bit from one flower on the sleeve to lots of small petals and leaves being blown across the sleeve to cover the holes.

Medinilla flower in red, blue and pink embroidered onto a burgundy fine knit jumper
satin and running stitch leaves in pink and Burgundy on pink fine knitted fabric
running stitch leaves in pink and navy on burgundy fine knitted fabric
running stitch leaves in pink and Burgundy on pink fine knitted fabric
Burgundy jumper with navy and pink sleeves with a large Medinilla flower on the shoulder and leaves floating down from it across the boat and left sleeve in embroidery
tropical flower leaves in red, blue and pink embroidered onto a burgundy fine knit jumper

The Vivienne Westwood, only had one large hole so we decided to pop the main flower over that, but add a little sprig of leaves on the shoulder to balance the design and ground the flower motif. 

I started by stabilising the holes, darning in some hand stitches and ensuring that all the loops of the exposed knit were held.

I think the project went really well and the jumpers now truly look one of a kind, but more importantly are wearable again now which is the main point. The customer was really pleased with the result which I was delighted about so I look forward to making more pieces like this with Loom again.

three embroidered leaves sewn in the shoulder of a fine burnt orange knitted jumper. Embroidery includes satin and running stitch
three embroidered leaves sewn in the shoulder of a fine burnt orange knitted jumper. A large Medillina flower is Embroidered onto the left side of the body too to cover up a moth hole. Stitching includes satin and running stitch in orange tonal thread
Tonal orange thread on orange fine knit shows an embroidered Medinilla flower in running and satin stitches, covering over a series of moth holes
  • An orange spool of machine embroidery thread and a paper version of a Medinilla flower embroidery design lie on a fine knitted Vivienne Westwood jumper where the VW logo is visible in green
  • An orange Vivienne Westwood jumper lies on a table with paper embroidery designs placed onto it of a medinilla flower and its leaves to plan the placement of the stitching
  • detailed shot of a hole having been hand sewn repaired