#clothing repair

[reality-detective]

Life Hack: Clothing Repair 🤔

[cozypunkprints]

Finally got around to finishing this visible mending project from this fall.

[letsgonecromancin]

Oh my god thank you. The thighs on my pants always wear away!

"Don't just throw ripped jeans away, you can repair them using these 10 cute Visible Mending techniques!!" unfortunately my friend the first point of failure for every single pair of jeans i have owned in my life has been the Crotch and Ass. Knees: fine, cuffs: fine; but 3 years in, and all that stands between the world and my astronaut-patterned taint is 0.5µm of denim worn so thin that every squat threatens to tear it to shreds like wet toilet paper. If the Tiktok craft community could figure out a way to resurrect jeans afflicted in such a way that doesn't involve adding a whole ass buttpatch like some sort of inverse assless chaps situation then that'd be great

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Visible Mending

My grandmother sews up the elbows of my shirt.

Patched and patterned, in garish colours

Outlandishly clear. A kind of cloth kintsugi, saying

This is not that which was here before.

Ostentatiously altered, openly repaired,

A virtue signal, I accept, but will not apologise for.

I walk the streets with solarpunk written on my arms.

Andrew sews up the flaps of my skin.

Carefully sutured, his steady hands

Bear a duty of care. These marks will scar and harden,

Swallow stitches and leave stretch-pleats.

Even when the scabs have fallen,

I stand with a form all fixed and modified,

A body I stayed with, laboured over,

Though I could have chosen to throw it out.

I stand before the mirror with trans written on my chest.

Lined and changed, my biohacked body

And rescued clothes speak prophecy to a future

As yet unnamed. I carry them both as a promise.

One on the other, endlessly whispering,

Visibly mended and always the proof

That redemption is worth the price.

I rub oil into my scars and ask

My grandmother to teach me how to sew.

[charlisabeth]

The elbow on this cardigan wore out, so I decided to fix it with some flowers 🌸

[offmyfuxkingmind]

I cast the spell: hole be gone

[calendae-creations]

I finally got around to mending this pair of pants! I know the other side is going to need reinforcement before too long as well, but they're currently wearable, which is what matters

I didn't draw out a grid or anything for the sashiko stitching. I definitely was going for fast over tidy! Still, I like how it looks.

[strawberrysalamanders]

Crochet Patching

from Mending Life: a Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts by Nina and Sonya Montenegro

[improbable-implosions]

Another multi-parter for both thighs across the main seam of a pair of jeans! This is a VERY common canvas for sashiko 'round this household, seeing as both Razz and I have pretty thorough thighs. Luckily, having learned my lesson (somewhat) from the giant patches in the same area I did previously, I split this into two designs, even if the patch fabric itself was one piece. Both designs are from wrenbirdart's stick and stitch collections, barring that little section on the first one I pencilled myself, as the main pattern was slightly too small.

First up we've got this genuinely delightful set of little asterisks, formed out of vertical, horizontal, and two diagonal sets of stitches. The first set of stitches immediately make clear that I really should be more careful about my math when I'm trying to duplicate the wrenbirdarts patterns onto my own dissolvable backing. Sure, that set all the way on the right is off by increasing increments of a quarter inch with each set, but I actually don't mind that look too badly in the end. The general look of all the eight-pointed overlapping crosses works super well, and I may take some inspiration from the mildly-fumbled pattern on that hand-pencilled section to make an alternating pattern of standard crosses and the asterisks, in the future.

Secondly, there's this pine forest design! I really had a love hate relationship with this one, as the pattern itself is SUPER pretty, I mean, look at that final picture! It's so beautiful! The major downside, though, is that it doesn't lend a lot of opportunities to load up straight stitches in a row. As you can kinda see in the progress shots, you do that central "coordinate grid" of a given pine top, then go quarter by quarter, filling in the other stitches, one by one, individually. Which, to me, is SUPER boring, I much prefer to load up a bunch of straight stitches in a row, then pull them all through, smoothing the fabric afterwards. So, partially because I wanted to get it done and over with as fast as possible, and partially because my jean shorts were in DIRE need of fast repairs before I could wear them in the (then incoming) summer heat, I somewhat sped my way through the pattern, in hopes that I can later come back to this pattern, and develop a more-loadable version that still keeps the pine-like beauty of the finished piece here.

[janerhoadesart]

Maybe it’s not very glamorous, but I love doing little mends like this. This is one of my husband’s favorite sweaters, but I noticed a little tear the other day.

Darning this took about 15 minutes. Now the sweater will last even longer!

Inside of the sweater is on the left, outside is on the right.

[ravelingbolero]

Improved a friend’s coat by adding belt loops. I’m glad I found such a good color match on the fabric!

[cozypunkprints]

A collection of most of the hand-darned mending I’ve done in the past year or so.

[queer-ecopunk]

Hurried patch on the collar of a thrifted shirt. I wanted to wear it and not have the hole get worse, but I might go back and match the thread to the pattern.

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Some visible mending I got done on old clothes at the repair cafe this weekend!

[pleaseshootthejester]

Here's another repair for the same person, I only have the one picture but this is a 100% wool jumper that had been unfortunately munched by moths. 4 darns using 50% wool 50% acrylic blend yarn in an almost identical colour. This is on an arm I believe (I did this at the start of the year so I can't really remember now) and is one of 2 smaller darns. The large one on the front was 4" by 7" and looked great when done. Alongside the 4 darns I did some small repairs to the cuffs and collar

The darn blends nicely in with the pattern of the knit and was barely noticeable when worn

[thejabber-talkey]

The butt of my jeans ripped up some months ago (this is the reason I had to buy my crappy H&M jeans that are already falling apart). But I finally finished up the patchwork, yippee!

I know the fabric on the big patch is a little loose, but if it works it works. This is my first time patching jeans from the inside, and I'm pretty pleased with myself