This looks like a job for Superman!

I’m starting on this tonight:

It’s having a bath right now. It had the feel of dry cleaning–or maybe just being dried out–so I wanted to get it yarny before I got started.

I think I’ll try to reknit/darn the holes in the body, which are comparatively minimal. But the sleeves will require more invasive surgery.

They’re set-in sleeves that have been knit flat and seamed. My plan is to remove the seam and unravel the entire sleeve, spit-splicing the yarn if possible as I go. If it’s superwash (I do remember seeing balls of vintage wool yarn from thrift stores labeled “machine washable,” so I guess it’s possible–though it doesn’t feel like modern superwash–but it is remarkably unpilled and unfelted for a sweater of its age), I’ll be rolling it into various balls an using up the big ones first to minimize my seams.

Instead of knitting an exact replacement sleeve, for which I have neither enough yarn or the appetite, I’m going to start at center shoulder and pick up an inch or so of stitches, then proceed back and forth, knitting flat and picking up additional stitches at both end of the rows, much like the construction of the slipper top on those felted slippers from Knit2Together. When I’m down to the straight armpit stitches, I’ll just pick them all up at once and continue in the round. Voila!

I’m going to count the original stitches at the widest point and work so I get about an inch narrower. Kid doesn’t mind if the sleeves are a bit more fitted, so I can go even narrower if I need to, but I think between the inch and the little bit that I’m gaining from the seam, that should get us fixed up.

I’ll leave the second sleeve intact for reference while I work on the first one, and I’ll take detailed notes to make them match.