Sewing and mending

Sewing and mending

Do you have any missing shirt buttons, pants that need a

patch or socks that could do with being darned? Long
considered a craft, sewing is a skill that everyone should
acquire. It’s easy to learn and will help extend the life of your clothing.

The sewing basket

You don’t need a large, well-stocked basket for simple clothes

mending. Basic sewing items will even fit into a shoe box or cookie tin.

Here’s what you will need.

Keep sewing and darning needles of various sizes in a pincushion or

piece of soap. Soap coats needles, helping them to pass easily through

thick fabrics.

• Try using a magnet as a pincushion; you can also use it to gather up

lost needles and spilled pins.

• Store pins and safety pins in small matchboxes.

• Keep a selection of sewing threads, plus darning and strong button

threads, in common colors, as well as some yarn for thick fabrics.

• Add a thimble, darning mushroom, seam ripper, tape measure,

scissors and perhaps a needle threader to complete the sewing kit.

• String buttons together by color and size to save time and prevent

them from collecting at the bottom of the sewing basket. Store extra

ones for specific articles of clothing in transparent, labelled bags.

Sewing on patches

Elbows, knees and the crotch area are usually the first parts of clothing

to require a repair. Here are a few things to consider when sewing on

patches.

• Hand stitch iron-on patches along the edges when patching stretchy fabrics.

Sew together holes in knitted items before applying a patch to be

sure they don’t get larger.

• Sew on a patch backing made from previously discarded denim

when patching a favorite pair of well-worn jeans.

• Use a sewing machine to attach patches to tough fabrics such as denim.

Buttons and buttonholes

• Before you lose a loose button and have to find a matching
replacement, sew the original on properly.
• Avoid damaging a favorite blouse when cutting off buttons by
inserting a comb between the fabric and the button before snipping
the threads.
• Stiffen thread by rubbing it with candle wax, which makes it easier
to pass through a needle.
• Sew on a button with four holes in a crisscross shape so that if one
thread breaks, the second keeps the button in place.
• Use a matchstick as a spacer between button and fabric. Once you’ve
fastened the button, remove the matchstick. Then wind the thread
firmly around the stitches several times to reinforce and finish with a
couple of extra stitches on the back of your fabric.
• Avoid tearing out fabric on the button facing, especially on coats, by
sewing an additional smaller flat button on the inside when sewing on a button.

Sew a frayed or over sized buttonhole with a couple of horizontal

stitches at the upper and lower edges of the hole so that the head of the

button just fits. Finish the ends of the thread on the wrong side.