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Jack’s Trackies – Pocket Repair – Stretch fabric
My friend’s son had done the classic – caught his pocket on something, probably a door handle, ripping both the outside and inner pocket bag. It’s in an area where lots of seams come together around the pocket opening. It’s a knit fabric, stretchy and it’s for a teenage boy who doesn’t want a visible repair. My friend will pass these on once her son has grown out of them so the repair needs to last as long as the trousers. I spent quite a lot of time debating with myself what order I could do this in and whether I should open up the outside leg seam. You’ll see…
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How to repair a rip by a pocket – shirt/pyjamas
You’ll recognise these from the last post. They are getting really old and slightly thin. The fabric was never that hefty to start with which had the benefit of being lovely in the summer. I leaned over slightly and heard that nasty sound which can strike fear when you’re out for the evening. Your clothes being ripped is rarely good news, although it could be if your love object then lends you their jacket and it turns out you’re in a romcom. This did ACTUALLY happen to me as a student at a posh dinner – sat down heavily in a skin tight dress and the seam by the zip…
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Rescuing PJs – when pyjamas won’t leave the party
These PJs were a TK Max find, bought when it was really closer to a clean jumble sale than a clothes shop. The originals are fine cotton, cool in summer, slightly more girly than my normal clothes but nicely made with piping and stuff. I discovered that I normally sleep on my back AND don’t stay still, all over the back waistband the fabric was literally wearing away. I’d just started volunteering at the Repair Cafe, it had only just begun in our town and some months we had more volunteers than visitors so I’d learnt to take some of my own sewing. This seemed like a perfect project to…
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My favourite jeans…
We all have a favourite pair of jeans, right? Mine were GAP, fitted a treat, had the right amount of give and so consequently were worn forever. When the inevitable happened I realised I definitely wasn’t a ripped jeans kind of person, preferring warm knees. I did a quick Google to find some simple swallow designs for inspiration, grabbed a little scrap of cotton and some embroidery thread. I hadn’t used embroidery thread for years so completely forgot to split the thread, this will be quick I thought, making a complete mess. I realised pretty quickly my mistake. It actually didn’t take very long even with the single strands, I…
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Repair Cafe – the new, old idea
Maybe you’ve been repairing stuff for years without really thinking about it. Or maybe you just chucked stuff out the moment it was no longer perfect, shiny and new. We all know what we “should” be doing, we didn’t need Greta or David Attenborough to tell us that binning as much as we do is a seriously bad idea. But maybe their voices have made us take a bit more notice and a bit more action. Environmental campaigners have long told people to try and keep stuff going for as long as possible, repairing, renovating, upcycling, re-purposing but many of those skills had fallen out of favour due to uber-cheap…
Making Stuff Better than New
