The latest issue of Twist Collective has a great article on darning, specifically darning socks, although it applies to other knit items as well.
I had a very large darning project about five years ago. Probably more darning than most contemporary hobbyist knitters will be faced with in their lifetimes. Unless, like me, they get hired by a neighbor to help repair a huge stack of knit items that had been damaged over the years.
This project taught me a lot about repairing knitting. Most of the items were sweaters, and they exhibited almost every possible form of damage: moth holes, ripped seams, frayed cuffs, missing buttons, and more. And the items ran the gamut from fingering weight to a classic Cowichan sweater in a bulky, loosely-spun single.
The first thing I learned was that the repair will always be noticeable. You can't make an invisible repair, so just put that thought out of your head.
With that in mind, your job is to make your repair as inconspicuous as possible. Try to match the color and thickness of the yarn, but don't worry too much about the fiber content. I ended up repairing that Cowichan sweater with a 100% alpaca yarn even though the original sweater was wool, but you would never know it.
There are many ways to try and bridge a gap with knit stitches to make it look like a seamless transition. None of them are worth the trouble. Out of all the techniques I tried, the woven patch was my favorite. You start by stitching a cross-hatched matrix horizontally and vertically across the gap, anchoring the yarn high enough above the damaged bits that it will hold. Then weave the yarn through the cross hatching, securing it again on each side.
The patch is obvious, but not as much as you would think. I think the end result looks better than if you tried to knit across the gap and failed. In much the same way that if you try to be quiet, you usually end up making more noise than you would have otherwise.
Image courtesy Flickr/amazing_podgirl
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