Saving Towels and Washcloths

 Maybe it's just at our house, but our towels start to fray along the edges well before the actual terrycloth is worn out. I trim the strings off, zig zag the edge in matching thread, and then fold it over just a quarter-inch to stitch it down. Makes a new edge and the towel keeps going. 

Currently most of our bath towels are wedding presents from 22 years ago. . . and counting! 

Then there was this washcloth that turned up with a frayed corner. It looks like a dog chewed on it, but that's puzzling since we don't have a dog. So I cut off the top strip entirely and stitched down the flat part to make a new edge. Let's see if that one can go 22 years, too. 

Mending for a Professional

I do little mending jobs for various people who know me, who refer me by word of mouth.  I was particularly proud of this job: a beloved blazer for a dear friend who is an adjunct professor.  But she's a professor in a creative field, so a visible mend on her jacket seemed like an opportunity for art.

I went for the look of Japanese boro mending, with all handstitching because I couldn't fit the sleeve under my machine and didn't want to take apart a lined sleeve to do that.

The cuffs were fraying as well.  I put on black bias tape, handstitching it down to the inside to keep it looking tailored.  It looks good with the black piping already in the blazer.

I love how the patches turned out! Subtle, yet distinctive.  Even artsy.  Even more important, dear Kim loves her mended jacket, too.

Hearts

I am just back from a funeral.  In fact, I sang a Leonard Cohen song at the funeral.  And I agree with my pastor, who said some time ago that it's important to go to funerals to step back from our busyness and look at the witness of our brother or sister who died and ask ourselves if we are truly focused on what's important.

Here on the blog, I am writing about the mundane, over and over and over again. You'll see that I put hearts on Phoebe's jeans just like I did four years ago for her big sister.

People are not talking about the mundane at a funeral; they are talking about more unique acts in peoples' lives, and yet we must eat, wear clothing, and be sheltered in hopefully clean houses. Somebody is working behind the scenes.

In this season in my life, I am deep in the mundane work behind the scenes.  I'm sure it's holy work, it's mostly loving work (sometimes I hate it), and I know it's only for a season and then my children will be out from under my wing.  Will I be ready to fly up high again and get some glory?  Well, I don't know. 

In the meantime, this discipline of blogging is going to help me step back and reflect, to exchange ideas and encouragement with you, dear readers.  Perhaps you've noticed that my posts the last few months are bare-bones and heavy on the mundane details.  I wondered, in fact, if I should stop blogging.  But I think.  The funeral today broke my heart a little, and I am back with a softer heart and a willingness to keep at it, the mundane, the endless food, laundry, vacuuming, tidying, the chaos.  Onward!

A Clever Zippered Pocket

My aunt Esther got me this handwork bag and I love it.  But the metal zipper on the pocket developed bent teeth that could not be fixed by orthodontia.  I looked at it more closely, and marveled at the clever design of this zippered pocket.

The zipper is topstitched on one side to the top of the pocket flap, and then topstitched on the other side to the bag itself, with both ends sewn down.  So simple and functional.  It was easy to remove the broken zipper and put in a new one.

This is my knitting bag, so I keep little items in the pocket like a measuring tape, rubber needle tips, yarn needle, etc.

Currently, I'm working on a Nola Cloche for myself that I fell in love with from the photos.  I hope my version turns out just as beautifully.

"Repair, Don't Throw Away"

"To combat a throwaway consumer culture, Sweden is giving financial incentives for people to repair clothes, bicycles, appliances, and other goods, according to the World Economic Forum.  In addition to providing tax incentives for repairs, levies are being added to the manufacture of new appliances based on the amount of chemicals used.  More people paying for repairs should mean more people in the labor force and more local jobs." - quote from The Mennonite May 2017, which is summarizing from Christian Century

My purse which I love, but it is vinyl and the corners are wearing off; I took a blue Sharpie to the worn corners.  A stopgap while I shop for a new purse (hopefully not vinyl).

 A Moses basket whose handles were fraying off the basket.  I darned the handles back on to the basket with twine.

 A tiny hole in our plastic watering can melted by a neighbor's cigarette cinder; I thought it was worth trying to fix with a small piece of duct tape inside and out.  The fix has been holding for months.

My granny shopping cart had a frayed back pocket.  I handsewed some patches over it so important
things (wallet! phone!) wouldn't slip out.

I would love to see incentives for repairs!  It's hard to find repair shops for anything these days because so many people say it's cheaper to buy a new one.  Do you try your hand at fixing things or know a fix-it genius?

A Little Tutorial for Patching Holey Jeans

Holes in jeans knees that you want to mend?  Here's one method (more methods at the bottom of the post).

Unpick a side seam on the jeans leg with the hole, whichever seam is not flat-felled but just a single seam, using a seam ripper.  You are trying to get it open far enough to fit it successfully under your sewing machine needle.  Probably at least 4" below and above the hole, but I just eyeball and unpick a little more if I need to.

Cut a rectangle of scrap denim or other sturdy cotton fabric and put it inside the jeans leg under the hole.  Pin it on the outside of the leg to mark the boundaries of the patch; you are going to sew on the right side, so you want your pins on the right side marking where the patch is underneath.

Now start at one end of the patch and sew back and forth in close zig-zags - I do parallel to the waistband of the jeans, but I suppose you could do parallel to the leg seams - which is attaching the patch.  I sew more densely over the holey/weak area, but I do patch generously beyond the hole, too, as insurance against more holes.  The pins are marking the upper and lower limits of the patch, but you pull the jeans out of the sewing machine and check what's going on back there.  I usually trim the patch a little bit where the sewing didn't get all the way out to the edge.

Turn the jeans leg inside out, match up the side seams, and sew it closed.  I sew a straight seam and then zig-zag the edges together to mimic the serged edge.  Done!

Sometimes I mend holes in knees by hand.  I use lighter-weight fabric for the patch and a field of hand stitches in perle cotton, contrasting or matching.  Here's Phoebe wearing a pair of jeans with both knees mended in blue perle cotton with blue fabric inside.

Genevieve is at this link wearing hearts on her knees.

Ben at this link has a monster on his knee.

I show a friend how to patch jeans' knees.

I Try Boro

"Boro" is Japanese mending using a field of sashiko (embroidery) stitches.  Boro is quite trendy on Pinterest right now, but I just eyeballed it when Ben's other knee, next to the monster, wore through.

I think it turned out nicely and it was certainly easy.  I used red perle cotton, a random darning needle I had, and the same red fleece from the monster's mouth.

The Also Sun Rises in the Corner

I made two new clothespin bags for the shop.  One is from a Laura Ashley dress with a lacy neck.

 The other is sunny patchwork.  Deep down in the corner of the lining, where there was a piece missing from the sky-blue fabric, I put a little yellow square.  The sunrise!  Yes, this is how my brain  drifts and amuses me while I sew.

Mending the Jute Bag

This is a Township Bag that my sister got for me in South Africa several years ago.  It seems to be a coarse woven jute and although it's two layers, I used it so hard that holes were worn into the bottom corners and the handles were being reduced to strings.

I actually did this mending project a while back, but the photographs I took did not show the mending well, so I tried again with the photos this week.  I'm not sure they're better, but I'm not spending more time on this because the bag itself works beautifully with its sturdy mended spots.

I took some of the stiff yellow fabric from the skirt with backbone and reinforced the handles. I love the texture of the machine stitching.

Then I made a box-shaped bag bottom with several calicos and hand stitched it onto the bottom of the bag with lots of various colors of perle cotton.

My Township Bag has lots more years in it now!  

Up to Some Mending Tricks

I was visiting my friend Mary Anne and we got into discussing mending, particularly a tricky zipper job that she wanted to do.  Then she showed me how she can slip a pant leg or sleeve on her sewing machine because of its space under the bobbin case.  I went home (fully loaded with a boppy, clothes, moby wrap, and baby extras she offered me - ah, the generosity of other mothers!) and went straight to my machine to see if I, too, had that handy space.  I do!

How has this escaped my notice for 7 years?  What is this called?  Does your machine have it?

 Of course, sliding a leg or sleeve onto this space means that I can't turn the fabric in all directions to patch a hole, so I use parallel stitching lines to mend.  For a really big hole, I think I would still rip out a side seam so I could really maneuver the problem area under the needle.

I slide off the plastic tray to reveal the smaller spaces where I can slide on a pant leg or sleeve.  I hope the photos make up for my lack of vocabulary for these machine parts!

But so often, I just want to quickly stitch up a hole and get the clothing back in service - I try to match my mending speed to the children's growth, which means I need to be fast.

When I started mending and darning, I was so proud that I took photos of every project.  Now, I mend so often that I rarely stop for a photo.

Recently, I mended these black pants for Ben - both knees had small holes.  They are knit pants, what we call "soft pants" around here and reserve for wearing at home or to bed, which is my attempt to preserve some dignity in public life.

Then I patched a strange hole near the hem of Genevieve's jeans.

I also patched a hole in my pajama sleeve that I got one morning as I was tearing (literally) out the back door with a full load of wet laundry to hang before we walked to school.

And then there was the loose flap of velcro on my husband's biking shoes, the unraveled seam on one of Ben's slippers, and the loosened stitching on a coat seam.  And I'm not even sure I could guess at how many socks I darned this winter - a lot, I know!  I love mending because it's so much faster than starting a whole garment from scratch.

A Mended Hanky

Hankies get ragged pretty fast around here, seeing as most of them start out vintage already and some people approach this life as a vale of tears (someone small sobbed all through breakfast this morning - oh my).  When the hankies start to look shredded, I remove them from the drawers and stash them in a dark corner of a shelf.  They've got such interesting colors and pretty patterns that I want to use them somehow in the future - I have several ideas on my Pinterest boards.

But for some reason, I wanted to mend this hanky and keep using it.

 It's a plain white cotton one, so I used soft blue-grey striped cotton and pale yellow perle cotton.  I enjoyed myself.  I thought maybe I wanted to add just a little something more to the mending job. . . maybe a running stitch on the edge. . . green leaves and a stem to the yellow starbursts. . . . But I couldn't decide.  So I stopped, based on the mantra that a dear sister at church explained:  when she's deciding something, she moves from clarity to clarity.  If she doesn't have clarity, she doesn't move.

I'm sure most people would apply this idea to much larger decisions, but I have found it incredibly helpful in the dozens of decisions in my path every day.

I saw a cast-iron skillet this weekend and I thought of buying it, but I didn't have clarity, so I didn't.  I wanted to try spiritual direction, but after two sessions, I have only murkiness, not clarity, about continuing, so I'm not going to.

Sometimes the murkiness only means "wait" and then the decision comes into sharp focus with a little more time.  This process has brought me such peace in large and small decisions, including, yes, whether or not I am "done" with the design of my mended hanky.

Patching a Tee Shirt

Somehow, there was a snip in Genevieve's pink tee shirt.  I didn't even bother to ask why.  I cut three yellow hearts out of a scrap of yellow knit (used in this clothespin dress, also), and covered the hole in style.  I put a jersey needle in my sewing machine and used a zigzag to top stitch them down.  Easy.  Done. Cute!

That Patching Post

Here is the patching roundup I mentioned, with all the projects categorized by Leila and Rosie's collection of pretty/happy/funny/real.

The pretty patches: 

My hotpads were looking pretty sorry and then I went and scorched one, so I made a new pair from my cutter quilt.  I covered up some split seams with patches and highlighted them with handstitching in red perle cotton.  It's so nice to work with pretty things that are also useful!

The happy patches: 

This handtowel went from serviceable to wonderful when I patched up a hole and a stain with some vintage kitchen curtains.  

And Genevieve can wear her tights again!  I darned a hole with matching green thread.  I'm so pleased to extend the life of these tights.

The funny patch:

I offered to cover up the brand name of Ben's backpack with an applique.  He loves the patch because it has wheels on it, I love it because it's a little offbeat. 

The real patches (so many of these!):

Apparently, the vintage pillowcase that I used for my pajama waistband was rather weak.  So holes are appearing in the waistband.  For now, I'm just slapping patches on them, embracing the shabby chic look, and hoping for spring pajamas.

Then there is the patchwork tablecloth.  

The mystery terracotta fabric gets very heavy and stiff when it's wet, so some of the seams of the patchwork have pulled out from the stress.  Also, I don't use wide seam allowances, so there wasn't much communal fabric for each seam (I can just picture each partner yelling and clinging to no avail. . . ).  So, I stitched on lots of patches to help the torn seams.  

The back of the patchwork looks rather cool, now.  Maybe I'll flip the tablecloth to get longer wear out of it between washings. . .