Fabric & Care
The five repairs worth learning, and the ones to pay for
A button, a hem, a seam, a moth hole and a snagged knit. Between them these account for most of what sends wearable clothing to landfill, and four of the five take under fifteen minutes.
Most discarded clothing is not worn out. It has one small failure that nobody fixed. Learning a handful of repairs returns a surprising number of garments to circulation.
1. Sewing on a button
The most useful and the easiest.
Use doubled thread, knotted at the end. Come up through the fabric from beneath, through one hole, down through the opposite hole. Repeat six to eight times.
The detail that matters: build a shank. Place a matchstick or a spare needle across the top of the button while sewing, so the stitches are not pulled tight against the fabric. Remove it, lift the button, wrap the thread three or four times around the threads beneath to form a stem, then pass the needle through to the back and knot.
The shank gives the button room to sit on top of the buttonhole layer, which is what stops a shirt pulling at the front and what makes the button last.
Match the stitch pattern to the others on the garment — parallel bars, a cross, or a bird's foot.
2. A hem
The slip stitch or blind hem is invisible from the outside and is the only hand stitch worth learning properly.
Fold and press the hem. Working from the inside, pick up a single thread of the outer fabric — literally one or two threads — then pass the needle through the folded edge of the hem for about a centimetre, and repeat. The stitch is nearly invisible because it barely penetrates the outer layer.
Keep the tension loose. A tight hem stitch puckers and shows as a dimple from the front.
Iron-on hemming tape works and will fail — usually after several washes, and frequently leaving adhesive residue that makes a proper repair harder. It is fine for an emergency the night before an event. It is not a repair.
3. A split seam
Most seam failures are the thread giving way, not the fabric. The fabric is intact and simply needs re-joining.
Turn the garment inside out. Use a backstitch: bring the needle up, go back a stitch length and down, come up a stitch length ahead of where you started. It produces a continuous line of stitching on the underside and is strong.
Start and finish two centimetres beyond the split, into intact stitching, so the repair is anchored.
Match thread weight to the fabric. Heavy thread on lightweight fabric cuts through it.
4. A moth hole
The repair that saves the most valuable garments, since moths prefer cashmere and merino.
For small holes, darning works. Use a darning mushroom or a smooth curved object inside the garment to hold the area taut without stretching. Using yarn as close as possible to the original — unravel a little from an inside seam if you can — lay a series of parallel stitches across the hole, anchored well into the sound fabric around it. Then weave a second set perpendicular to the first, over and under, filling the gap.
Work on the inside for an invisible repair, or on the outside in a contrasting colour if you want it visible — visible mending has become an aesthetic in its own right and removes the pressure to make it perfect.
Before repairing, deal with the moths: seal the garment and freeze it for at least 72 hours to kill eggs and larvae, then check the rest of the wardrobe.
5. A snagged knit
The repair that is most often done wrong.
Never cut a snag. Cutting breaks the yarn and the knit will unravel.
Instead, push the snag through to the inside of the garment. A latch hook or a small crochet hook makes this easy; a needle threaded with a loop of thread also works — push the loop through from the inside at the base of the snag, hook the snag, and pull it back through.
Then gently stretch the fabric around the pulled area in both directions to redistribute the yarn. The distortion usually disappears entirely.
What to pay a professional for
Zip replacement. Requires unpicking, matching and setting under tension. Cheap at an alterations tailor and difficult at home.
Lining replacement in a jacket or coat, which is a substantial reconstruction.
Reweaving. A specialist skill in which a hole in woven fabric is invisibly repaired using threads taken from a seam allowance. Expensive, and remarkable on a garment worth saving.
Anything structural in tailoring — shoulders, canvas, armholes.
Shoe resoling, obviously.
Leather repair, which requires specific tools and materials.
The kit
A packet of assorted needles. Polyester thread in black, white, navy and grey — polyester is stronger than cotton and works on most fabrics. Small sharp scissors. A seam ripper, which is the most useful tool in the box and costs almost nothing. A thimble. A darning mushroom if you own knitwear.
Total cost is trivial and it will save several garments in the first year.
