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Monday, April 25, 2022

If Only Mishaps Didn't Happen


I'm sure something similar has happened to you. A favorite top. You're doing what you can to take good care of it. Gentle wash, cold water, line dry. And then that fateful day when an edge gets caught on something sharp. Rats! A hole. My morning took a bit of a nose dive. 

I thought for several hours what I wanted to do about this. I love this top because it looks good on and the colors and print are so springlike. It just slaps a smile on my face when I put it on. What perhaps makes this shirt even more of a favorite is I bought it with a gift card at, wait for it, a thrift store, paying all of $3.99 for it. So, I was kicking myself when I caused a small hole.

The next morning, I decided to give mending it a try. First, I used a small piece of iron-on patching fabric on the underside. This little bit of fabric stabilizes the knit to keep it from stretching as I machine stitch over the hole.

I attempted to color-match thread to the print. I had varying shades if dark purple, light lavender, and some hot pink. The hole was in a patch of medium purple.

I zig-zagged over the hole with colored thread. Unfortunately, I made the wrong choice (going with one of the paler shades) and had to unpick the mending thread before trying another color choice. 

I searched my threads again and found a small amount of a color closer to the bit of fabric where I was mending. 

I zig-zagged over the hole with the new color. The end result was a mending job that while it doesn't exactly match, it blends in with the print so well that when a daughter asked me where the hole was, I had a hard time finding it at first. I'd call that a success.

I've repaired several other knit tops in exactly the same fashion. They hold up well to wear and laundering -- sometimes the patch job outlasts other areas of the shirt. My favorite spring top will now go on for many more wearings and the mend job cost me exactly zero $.

Still -- if only mishaps never happened. Sigh.

11 comments:

  1. There was a time in my life that I mended all of the children's clothes. Those days are long gone but I still mend anything in my wardrobe or my husband's wardrobe that needs it. I buy lots of sewing things at estate sales so I have a large variety of colored thread and can match just about anything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alice,
      That's a great way to get extra items like thread. I'll have to check garage sales this summer. Thank you!
      Lili

      Delete
  2. Great mending job. As Alice mentioned, it must help to have a wide variety of thread colors to choose from. I don't sew much any more, so my color choices have dwindled.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Live and Learn,
      Thank you. I don't sew very much any more either. However, I still have thread from my earlier sewing days and from my mother's sewing stash. But even that is dwindling.
      Lili

      Delete
  3. Good save! Those little accidents cause your stomach to sink, don't they? I'm sure we all have our own stories of mishaps.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kris,
      Absolutely. I was just kicking myself for not being more careful. Oh well. Things happen.
      Lili

      Delete
  4. That's a clever way of mending that I haven't tried. I have refrained from using iron on patches in mending thinking it would be stiff. I'll certainly try that next time since knits are difficult to mend without puckering. I need to get busy altering clothes that I don't quite like. In the past, I usually bought clothes because it was cheap thinking I can alter it to something better. What happened was I got lazy and lost interest. So now when I need something new, I will go to my bins of old but new clothes and alter that, no more buying period. I did not donate since I figured no one would want to buy my outdated clearanced clothes.

    Have a wonderful Tuesday,
    Laura

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Laura,
      The thin patches work well with mending. A strip of this patching fabric was sold in a packet with the notions, but is not the same as what you'd patch jeans with, much much thinner. Anyways, it stabilizes knits and gives the thread something to hold onto when zig-zagging over a hole.
      Ha ha -- I don't donate many clothing items because by the time I get done with them, the only thing someone would buy them for are rags! Outdated rags! I think it's a good thing you've hung onto these clothes. Like you said, you can go "shopping" in your own stash.Now that's a money-saver.
      I hope you had a great day! It's late evening here, now.

      Delete
    2. P.S. that was Lili ^^^
      Commenting is malfunctioning for me tonight and I can't use my google account.

      Delete
    3. Same here, I can't use my Google account either. I thought I couldn't use it to comment because I created another Google account a few days ago and thought that may have confused my device. ( I am switching my old email to gmail, since I am planning to quit our old carrier, so same name just @gmail.com, just in case you may want to email me in the future.) My old Google account that i normally use was with hotmail. So confusing, I think I have created too many Google accounts for the various Google functions over all my devices. The device I currently use for comments sometimes changes Google accounts unknowingly, depending on the Google account I have used on my laptop and desktop (? Not sure) I don't understand how this all works, and just have to go with the flow.

      Laura

      Delete
    4. I just have to say, how much we think alike lol. That's exactly what happens to my clothes, after I'm through wearing it, it is only barely good enough to be a rag. They are much too worn for making anything like blankets or rag rugs. They are just cut in squares to be used in place of paper towels, usually to wipe up spills on the floor or to clean bird cages.

      Thank you for explaining more about the iron on patch. Nowadays, there are so many types of stabilizers, compared to the old days, but fusible interfacing by Pellon comes to mind, which I have in my stash. I think that would work as a patch, thank you for this great tip.

      Laura

      Delete

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