A few weeks ago, I decide to learn how to do some of my own patch and repair work on my clothing. I think it's good in general to repair clothes instead of throwing them away and, really, I quite like the look of patches and repaired clothes. The main issue here is that I have no sewing skills. I'm old enough that in middle school, the boys did Industrial Arts for two-thirds of the year and Home Ec for the rest. And Home Ec for us was mostly cooking (well, baking). I vaguely recall doing some practice stitches on sewing machines and that's about it.
There's also an element of personal challenge here: I've always been rather clumsy so learning to sew is an attempt to defy my low dexterity score and try to learn a skill that requires a bit of hand-eye co-ordination.
So, I asked my partner for a tutorial, borrowed some supplies, and got started. My first project after doing some practice stitching was patching a hole in some running tights and next was darning a sweater and fixing some worn cuffs on a hoodie, as well as reinforcing its elbows.
Where did this sweater come from?
I have this black sweater, which may be a military sweater? I've had it for years and years and have zero recollection of where it came from. I suspect a thrift store but I really can't remember. The label is faded but it was manufactured in Canada by a company called Logistik, which seems to still exist and supplies uniforms to Canadian Forces. Earlier this winter I discovered three holes in it, so it became my next project!
Before
There was this hole and two others
While darning another sweater, I chose thread that matched its colour but this time on the black sweater, I went with a coloured thread. The repair was going to look obvious, but I thought that would be fun. The technique I used was a dead simple weave darn. All you have to do is horizontal and vertical straight stitches across hole, weaving through the threads as you cross them.
This was a pretty smooth repair, save me sewing a fold into the sweater and I had to cut a bunch of thread out...
After
Here's how the holes look after I was done with them:
This one was near the collar
Here's what the back of the sweather looks like now
I like how the coloured thread stands out against the black! It kind of looks like circuitry or wires to my eye!