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I tried mending on a whim and this is who I am now (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/diy@beehaw.org
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I'm grabbing every favourite piece of clothing I have around the house and mending it with a needle and thread

I'm not very good at it, but it's not terribly hard to close up broken seams good enough for some use. It sure as heck beats buying a new pair of jeans for $70 just because I somehow destroy the crotch every year

I'm finding this to be really satisfying and relatively easy to do. Certainly I can develop better stitching technique and use better tools and material, but it's easy enough to be good enough, or so it seems to me now

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[–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

Looks great OP! Like others have mentioned, in a location like that I would reinforce it with fabric on the inside. I would also add a layer of stiches a bit further back from where the tear is as where it is now looks to be putting a lot of pressure the few lines of thread left in the fabric. You want it to pull as evenly across the fabric as you can. I really think a patch with some sashiko style stitching would keep these jeans going for years.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    sashiko style stitching

    I was skimming this page on it and was left with some questions - it tells you what to do, but not why.

    How much of Sashiko is style, and how much is utility? For ex. with the stitches chart at the bottom we are advised to "leave the center open", "avoid crossing over", "leave a slack loop on corners", but the purposes aren't explained.

    I'm cool with it being for aesthetic reasons but I really like to understand what I'm doing, not much of a blind rule follower, and kind of a minimalist tbh.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    That page you linked is using it more for embroidery than strength but the intention is distributing the tension more evenly over the fabric with long series of running stitches. As I mentioned before it looks like there is a lot of pull happening along that sensitive raw edge of the tear near the seam which makes it likely to pop again. By distributing that tension more evenly along a larger area of the fabric, especially with the fabric patch behind reinforcing it, your mend will last longer.

    heres a basic tutorial

    and this gives a little bit more about the philosophy

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