A hole had formed under one of the armpits. As always, the best place to be: right at the seam, or in this case even at several seams. The hole wanted to be where four seams met. After the second piece which was darned very relaxed, this flaw was more of the type ‘well, you can do it that way but you don't have to’.
before
It should be an invisible repair as good as possible. In hindsight, the third piece combined the difficulties of the first two pieces: Working along a seam and finding the right shade of white. Once again, I decided to use the weave darning method and regarding the shade of white, I chose the one that came closest to the white of the shirt and started. In the end, this repair was also easy to do. I made sure that I anchored my threads properly at the seams, but that was not all that bad.
after
And even though you can see the darned area very clearly in the photo, I hardly notice it when I'm wearing the shirt. And that's not because one just don't see it that often (I rarely walk around with my arm constantly stretched upwards). I have the feeling that the colour has somehow evened out with the subsequent wash cycle.
Didn't hurt at all! 3/3 items of clothing are ready to be dressed.
I may have used the end of the year tactically to post the last two items of clothing. In case you're still looking for New Year's resolutions, I've got an idea! 😀
In March I announced my repair date (by the way, the date was postponed several times 😆). I wanted to make things cosy for my repair date, including the documentation work. On the one hand, this meant that the atmosphere for the repair date itself should be relaxed, on the other hand, taking the photos shouldn't feel toooo much like work. Based on this, I drew up a checklist of things I could prepare so that I could concentrate on the repairs on the day of doing the repairs. Preparation included preparing something for my ears (podcast list), something for thirst (a pot of tea) and something for hunger (pretzel sticks). The clothes had already been picked out in advance, so I knew which broken parts awaited me and was all the more excited. And then, on one of the many May bank holidays, the time had come!
Yield: 3.66 pieces repaired.
Details of the yield follows now. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Piece 1: black skirt
The seam connecting the zip and the skirt came went to pieces. To prevent it from getting worse, I wanted to sew the zip back on properly. I did this with the so-called slip stitch (also called mattress stitch, ladder stitch; a great stitch because the thread "disappears" and the seam is therefore "invisible"). It went very quickly, max. 10 minutes.
Before, outside.
Before, inside.
After, outside.
After, inside.
Piece 2: dusky pink top with flower print
I had a tear in the seam on the right-hand side where the front and back are joined. 1 cm x 0.5 cm. I don't like these areas at all because the proximity to the seam always overwhelms me. I had actually already started the repair during a repair workshop at Fashion Revolution Week in April (organized by Fashion Revolution Germany / Frankfurt) and had used the weaving method.
I continued darning during my repair date. I am so happy about the colour similarity. In this case it was not darning thread I used, but embroidery thread (1 of 6 threads) and I had the thread from the repertoire of the workshop leader (Ekaterina Haak, whom I have mentioned elsewhere). The darned area is actually visible but if it's the right angle, the darned area blends in well with the garment.
Before.WIP.WIP (almost done).
After.
After (well hidden).
Piece 3: grey sports shorts
That was the most exciting repair of the day.
The trousers have a waistband cord but actually, there are two cords sewn into the centre in the back. The right-sided ripped somewhere in the middle. To make the trousers somehow usable again, I had used some yarn to lengthen the right-sided waistband. It looked too odd to me and ended up in the as-long-as-you-look-like-this-I-don't-wear-you pile.
For the repair, I rummaged around to see if I had anything that looked similar to the cord and found an old shoelace, half of which had been torn off as well. Ideal!
So I took off the yarn (pink) and then sewed the two loose ends of the cords (waistband cord on trousers and shoelaces) together with lots of stitches. Then I cut off the loose, frayed ends and melted them with a lighter. This left the ends clean and minimized the likelihood of it coming undone again. The join disappears into the waistband anyway + I have a two-coloured waistband cord now. Pretty cool 😀
Before.Before, connecting point.WIP, sewing on the new cord.After, connecting point (working side).After, connecting point (working side).After, connecting point (clean side).After.
Piece 4: black tank top
The top had three small holes on the back. To close these, I tried scotch darning for the first time. It's so much fun! You can work your way and see how the hole gets smaller and smaller.
Even though it is black yarn, you can still see the darned area quite well. This was not invisible mending. I wonder if it would have looked more invisible with the weaving method? In retrospect, I thought it would have been funnier in colour.
I only managed 2 of 3 holes that day, that's where this 0.66 comes from 😀
The third hole was darned by me in the morning a few days later. On the day of my repair date, I found one hole on the front side (this destroys all my calculation for the yield) ... this hole was darned in the meantime, too 😁
Before, back side.
Before, back side, hole 2 and 3.
WIP (hole 1 ... one hole = loads small holes ...)After, back side.
Nachher, Rückseite, Loch 1.
After, back side, hole 2 (open) and hole 3 (darned).
As always, I am amazed about how long a repair takes compared to how long a garment is spurned because of its flaw. In the extreme case, it is 10 minutes versus X years. A bit crazy!
Will I learn from this awareness and tackle the repairs more quickly in the future? Me: 🤷🏻♀️
This is how it goes with broken clothes: As small as the hole may be, it may be hidden at its best and no one would ever look at it anyway - but once I have seen it, it's the only thing I will see of this clothing item. If I wore it out, no one would notice the flaw. But I wouldn't really care what the others don't see. The hole is the only thing I see.
That's what happened to the patterned blouse.
On the right side, at the seam where the front and back are joined together, quite far down and close to the hem, a tear had crept in. This looked like a hole at a bad angle. Accordingly, the patterned blouse was placed on the repair pile. In preparation for the trip last autumn, I went through my clothes - even the ones that were on the repair pile. And I actually picked three items for the trip from that pile. It was probably only a few weeks until the day of departure. And the clothes had been on the pile for two years at least and, in the spirit of the "out of sight, out of mind" principle, their existence had been completely forgotten in the meantime. So how likely was it that these three items would make it back to life?
The preparation phase
I wanted to redo the pattern more or less, thus doing invisible darning/mending. Accordingly, first restore the surface with white thread, then somehow reproduce the pattern with red yarn. Without the red pattern the pure white blob would have been too obvious for me amidst of the whole pattern.
The implemenation phase
I used the weave darning method for the white area. Working on a seam is not as pleasant as working on a clean surface, mainly because the hole/tear extended to both sides. The white colour of my thread is too warm but so be it. I then embroidered with red thread, orientating myself on the shapes on the blouse, like mini leaves. I don't have much embroidery experience so I did it rather freestyle.
The photo stamps tell me that it took about 1.5 hours in one day.
The finalization phase
It's not a completely invisible repair but I still think it was successful and the embroidery part was something new to me. I didn't do a super clean job but in the end the hole is gone and the blouse is wearable again. The blouse was allowed to travel with me. Mission completed!
Thoughts during the process
What amazes me again and again: the working time and the waiting time are in stark contrast to each other. It's almost ridiculous.
The clothes had been on the repair pile for at least two years. This repair took me 1.5 hours - this is about the length of a feature film. If I had invested this time sometime earlier - and it is a foreseeable time - then the blouse would have become part of my wardrobe again much sooner with a reasonable expenditure of energy.
Sicherlich, in ebendieser Zeit habe ich einiges gelernt und bin selbstsicherer geworden was die Methoden angeht. Aber oft geht es erst mal darum, den Makel irgendwie mal angefasst zu haben und um den Versuch es zu reparieren. Das ist das, was ich von dieser und anderen Reparaturen mitnehme: einfach mal dransetzen und machen!
(Spoiler: Ich schaffte es, alle drei Teile für die Reise wieder fit zu machen! Edit: Hier geht es zu den anderen beiden Kleidungsstücken: N° 2 – Weiß-rot gestreiftes Langarmshirt und Weißtöne; N° 3 – The white polka dot shirt and the dot no one wanted)