Tag Archives: mending

These Are the Times That Try Men’s Soles….and Pantlegs, and Elbow Patches.

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Presumably, Thomas Paine was not talking about the soles of socks, and I am also left to presume that women wore clothes during revolutionary times, as well as men.

Nevertheless. Here we are. Repairing our clothes. Or as my husband likes to say: “You are working on your post-apocalyptic skills.”

Now I’ve seen some videos of people who literally have a tiny knitting machine that they use to darn holes on knitted fabric. I imagine it works on any fabric. But before I got myself into anything too complicated, I tried a simpler, slow-stitched, hand technique.

As you can see above, the trick to repairing a hole, any hole in your clothes, is to delineate the area you will stitch.

Then you want to start and end each stitch across the hole with an “anchor” stitch. This is important. It helps to hold the shape, length and tautness of the long stitch.

I used some decorative thread that I had from Wonderfil that was attributed to Sue Spargo. Eleganza Perle Size #5. This is a fairly substantive thread. Nothing that I would ever use in a sewing machine. Standard Valdani perle cotton is usually Size #8 or #12.

Thread actually gets to be a heavier weight as the numbers go down. The calculation is based on how many kilometers of thread will weigh one kilogram. So a thread that is thicker and more robust will have fewer kilometers per kilogram.

With this method, we’re actually creating the warp and weft of a fabric, as we stitch it out. You can see one layer above, after it’s finished.

Next, we start the weaved layer. Again, you must create an anchor stitch at the start and end of every row. This, of course, is where a little tool would come in handy, but it’s certainly easy enough to do by hand. Weave in and out every single thread. This part is easier to do if you turn the needle and use the blunt end to weave. Don’t worry, I missed a few. It happens. But the more precise you can be about getting your needle in and out in the right places, the more it starts to look like a woven fabric.

I was working on stretch jeans, and so, I noticed a bit of puckering from pulling the stitches taut. I could probably have avoided that it I had stabilized the area, but I really wanted to just try it without a lot of fuss.

I used a small hoop and opened the pant leg up on the side to make it easier for me to stitch.

Would I consider it lovely? I don’t know. It’s unique. And I think with a bit of practice, I could get this to where It’s pretty cool.

I urge you to start repairing your clothes. On social media, I see the youngsters buying up all of Grandma’s old quilts at garage sales and thrift stores and turning them into hoodies and dance pants. It’s really something.

Hope you enjoy some slow stitching in your life, and find you own way to revitalize something that might have ended in the trash.

Sashiko is another gem on my list of repairs. I just bought myself some Sashiko needles. Can’t wait to try that.

To close this one out, we’ll give Thomas Paine the respect he deserves when he speaks of tyranny.

“These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
–Thomas Paine, 1776

Mending is Trending

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Do you have a pair of pants that are past pretending to be cool with all their holes? Shirts with stains? ( I seem to have a lot of these, I can’t seem to keep my food in my mouth. Kids, this is something they don’t tell you about aging. You constantly have your food on your shirt. Yes, it’s gross. You’ll get there soon enough.)

My husband is particularly good at wearing down the hems of his pants. (Another sign of aging…you seem to get shorter and your pants drag on the ground.)

Although for those of us who have never been considered tall, dragging hems is a lifelong problem.

But hey! We fix our clothes now. I’d love to do a blog post on fast fashion and where all our cheap clothes end up. We all know it’s a problem. We can’t just keep purchasing new clothes and throwing out the old ones or even just donating them. Third world countries are telling us to keep our crap. They have enough stupid t-shirts, thanks.

Here’s a pair of stretchy pants that were way too long and were an easy fix on a serger using the cover stitch.

Of course, mending and hemming are where a serger really comes in handy. For the shredded hems. I just run them through the serger and hem on the sewing machine. Takes a few minutes, and the pants get a bit shorter, but a really quick solution, all things considered.

Speaking of all things NOT considered, here’s another mending project.

I have this sweatshirt which I made, and it is actually quite loved. Worn and worn and worn. But I set it aside when I realized it had grease stains on the front. Probably from cooking at some point. Aprons actually do have a function, but I’m not yet ready to wear one around the house. (That’s really crossing an old lady rubicon for me. Still, why deny the inevitable?)

I decided to cover it with some hand embroidery. Looking back, I probably should have just embroidered a few strategically-placed daisies and been done with it. Instead, I used a photo out my back window, and converted it to a hand embroidery design.

I drew it out onto a piece of wash away stabilizer, so I could see it on the dark fabric. I think I should have just drawn it using a white pencil. The washaway stabilizer made every stitch a bit harder to push and pull through. And there are a LOT of stitches.

This design took me a ridiculously long time to finish. So simple, yet so time-consuming.

And to be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure I love it, but it is interesting. The washaway was rather stubborn and I had to rinse it in the sink for quite a while.

I finally threw it into the wash and pulled it out before it got to the dryer. I ironed it while it was still damp.

Here’s a tip:

When ironing embroidery, even machine embroidery, use a towel on top of the embroidery. A hot iron will flatten it and take away all the dimension, and it might even harm the thread. So just use a towel over the top which allows the threads in the design to have a place to go.

It turned out kind of fun, almost like a window in the middle of my sweatshirt. In fact, I’m thinking I just might add a frame around it to make it look like a window. It has that hand-made feel, which is something that was important to me. I also get a kick that it’s the early spring view out my family room window. All in all, it was a learning experience.

I love the look of visible mending that all the kids are doing these days. I’ll be trying more and more. I have plenty of jeans with holes in the knees.

Here’s to making things last a bit longer. Like the planet.

Hugs and stitches.