All you really need is a little plastic thing of needles ($1), some pins ($1), thread (varies but even good cotton thread isn’t that much), scissors (where you might actually consider investing a little - do not use these scissors for anything else, and consider a rotary cutter if you really get into it), and fabric.
Fabric might seem like the pricey part of the equation, but consider how much a thrift store is going to charge you for a duvet or a pile of t-shirts! I have something like 30 t-shirts I spent maybe $5 on several months ago, and I’ve been working through that pile for a while.
You can turn a t-shirt into a pillow, a reusable bag, use the scraps to patch clothing, make dolls, quilts… The bits that get to be so small to be unusable for a scrap quilt you can use to stuff things.
It takes a lot of time compared to machine sewing, but it’s an activity that can be done while watching a tv show.
If you ride a bicycle and keep getting holes in your ass, I recommend patching with webbing. Think seatbelt material.
You can buy a roll of it from Johanns. They sell it for weaving the seats of outdoor chairs.
I have this pesky hole in my ass that I haven’t been able to get rid of for years!
I had two holes down there, but at some point I decided to get another one installed. Unfortunately it was absolutely not a DIY installation. :/
Again, sew it shut with webbing. But you can use super glue in a pinch. That should keep your asshole shut
Is Johann’s the German version of Joanne’s?
Si
I have made two plushies this way and I feel an extra connection to them. I look at them and think “aww cute” but also “I did that!”
https://edunham.net/2016/04/11/plushie_rustacean_pattern.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9bjNCo3dk4
That’s super cool!!
So cute!
Us traveling kids just use floss for thread. Works great.
Welcome home, fam.
reduces your impact on the environment
This is basically a calling card of shit marketed to dems who purtport to care about climate change but take exactly zero minutes to comprehend it. Spoiler alert: read The Climate Book. Nobody’s individual household actions matter.
“I can literally kill hundreds of animals per year and roll coal in my truck because its someone else’s problem”
“Also I don’t know the difference between ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’”
What if I told you I don’t kill animals and don’t drive a truck? Would you shift your argument?
I know a lot about climate change. I also know a lot about capitalism and Marxism. Individual accountability has an insignificant impact on the crisis. If you believe that you’re going to make a difference with your household choices, you’ve succumbed to corporate propaganda.
Like I said, read The Climate Book, an entry-level foray into the topic designed for people like you. You’ll probably quickly understand how badly you’ve been misled.
Neither is sufficient. Both are necessary.
You’re an ignorant poser.
Interested to see a citation on how it can reduce impact on the environment. I mean like, yes technically it is a reduction but is it really a meaningful reduction? I would imagine the impact is probably pretty negligible for the average person.
The cloth and thread are manufactured in the same facilities as clothes, and transported along the same methods. Needles, spools, and other sewing related products would have their own footprint that is factored into the footprint of regular clothes at a reduced fraction. If one uses a sewing machine, the same would be said for the electricity generated to operate it. The only thing you are really cutting out is the time that the cloth spent being assembled into an article of clothing in a factory and potentially pad prints/silk screening. Which is fine, except this is brought up as a hobby and not as a skill for repairing existing clothing to last longer and reduce amount of clothes sold. Not that it really matters because clothes are wastefully over-produced and unsold units are sent to a landfill in another country.
As a hobby, one will often be more wasteful as they are less skilled, leading to higher initial volume of cloth purchased. Also, a lot of “practice pancakes” likely to end up directly in the local landfill.
Not that learning how to sew is bad, even as a hobby or anything. I am just skeptical on the environmental claim. I don’t see it really making that much of a difference for the average person, personally.
Plus, and this is probably just because I live in California, but fabric is morbidly expensive here. Even the cheap stuff. Its been getting more expensive since at least 2014. This has led to multiple fabric selling stores closing in my area. Cant buy what you cant afford. Even thrift shops are charging a lot. A worn-out t-shirt is like $9 USD. Which is almost the price of some brand new shirts online.
(The yellow stitches are basting stitches, meant to hold the hexagons to the paper and will eventually be removed)
I paid about $2 for this stack of 10 t-shirts. (Avoid goodwill, go to the mom and pop places). None of these shirts were ever going to be used again. No one wants the t-shirt of a random church or police department, or a stained white t-shirt, or a high school football team.
Instead of buying fabric - buying something new which would encourage a retailer to buy something to replace it - I am repurposing these shirts into yarn (which I knit into rugs), patches for other clothing (which would otherwise need to be thrown away), reusable bags, or scrap quilts (which will mean that I can keep my thermostat lower in the winter).
These shirts are the kinds of things that would otherwise end up as textile waste, a pile of useless clothing in Ghana. “Reuse” in the second R in importance in “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
I think also that the ability to repair clothes instead of throwing them away is a huge part of the equation. I had an ex that would throw clothes away for missing a button. That is not particularly uncommon.
Machine sewing isn’t that much more expensive, and it’s a VAST improvement over hand sewing unless you’ve got plenty of time, and lots of boredom.
Doesn’t fit in my backpack tho
What about repairing the knee on jeans? I have several that I’d love to repair (as I’m not normal sized, nice clothes are rare for me) but I only have a classic sewing machine.
I was going to advocate machines, specifically the vintage Singer machines (the black, all-metal dudes). They are very simple, there’s tonnes of information online for repairing & maintaining them, and you can usually find people just trying to get rid of them. Find one that isn’t rusty and moves freely and you’ll probably just need to oil it and mess with the tension.
If space is a concern, you don’t need to keep it in the sewing table (though it’s more comfortable). Those vintage machines are simple and tough to kill.
unless you’ve got plenty of time, and lots of boredom
also if you like needles relentlessly stabbing your thumb.
That’s what thimbles are for, my dude.
They’re not part of a drum kit? Tho thrange!
Also space and peace of mind. Sewing machines aren’t the largest of machines, but they do require a dedicated space, and can be somewhat noisy.
they don’t need a dedicated space, just a space. I have a cheapo lightweight machine with a built in handle that takes 1 minute to set up
Sewing machines also are much worse for patching things.
Just think through the logistics of how you would use a sewing machine to reinforce the knee of some pants or to reinforce/repair a well loved stuffy.
If you are actually Making things, a sewing machine is well worth it. But it doesn’t replace knowing a few basic hand stitches.
I used to have my mom fix my clothes when they ripped and I was a kid and she used her machine to do it. The stitching was always this huge bulky seam. Now that I do it by hand it’s much more compact and almost invisible if I can get it to line up well. Not sure if it was some setting on the machine that could be changed to look better as I don’t have one but I like the outcome when I do it much better.
Just think through the logistics of how you would use a sewing machine to reinforce the knee of some pants or to reinforce/repair a well loved stuffy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO6VezZSfus
Like this – Doing knee patches, or small stuffies isn’t difficult with a proper sewing machine. You just bunch up the material to get around it.
I’d imagine that machine sewing is quite useful in “making the thing,” but hand sewing is more fun for “doing the stitch”. And there can be some stitches on a “thing” that require hand sewing even if most of it is machine made, so it’s not a bad idea to know some different hand stitch techniques.
My view is if I have a friend with a machine or there’s a community center or something with one I’ll absolutely use it for many projects.
But since I only sew to repair my own clothes, live somewhere fairly small, and am poor, and don’t like having lots of stuff (makes evictions more devastating), I won’t get one myself.
This is a great point. I will say though that I’ve struggled to “get good” with machine sewing - enough for my occasional small projects. And OP just reminded me that I can actually step down to hand sewing if that is all I need.
Counterpoint: hand-sewing reduces your impact on the environment more because you can’t impact environment that much with both hands occupied for dozens of hours. It’s like touching grass but productive.
You can take your stuff outside and sew and touch grass at the same time.
By that logic, the best thing to do for the environment is to die - which is probably true, it’s just not a very good (or even particularly interesting) argument.
right on both counts
PLEASE BUY THE ODD SIZES FROM THE THRIFT STORES AND NOT THE SIZES I WEAR THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
PLEASE DISREGARD THE PREVIOUS POST, NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE HAVE PLENTY OF CLOTHING OPTIONS. LEAVE THE ODD SIZED CLOTHING FOR ODD SIZED PEOPLE
CAN WE PLEASE STOP YELLING, IT’S STRESSFUL
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT PEOPLE NOT BUY THAT JACKET I WANT TO BUY THEY DO NOT MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO, PROBABLY ON PURPOSE
BIG JACKET CONSPIRACY STRIKES AGAIN
ok
I AM L FOR LUMPY AND SOMETIMES M FOR MANGLED OR XL FOR EXTRA LUMPY I AM FINE IF YOU BUY THE REST PLEASE AND THANK YOU
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
You can also use a sewing machine whilst watching TV.
Also, the fabric IS the expensive part because you start going “oh that’s a pretty fabric” and end up with a pile of fabric. Then you buy another sewing machine
Don’t forget about the serger.
And the cutting board, especially if you get the rotary cutter. And the adjustable mannequin…
I hand-sewed some goat legs for halloween last year with basically zero sewing knowledge, it was genuinely such a blast to figure stuff out :D Took like 2 weeks worth of evenings while watching a show but 10/10 would do again.
spoiler
Very cool.
Got any plans for this coming Halloween?
This Halloween falls on a friday, so I’ll probably just be wearing the legs to work with a normal shirt and not mention them at all. Gotta fix all the hot-glued parts until then though, they fell apart very fast last year and I haven’t fixed them yet lol
When you have clothes that you want to keep and they get holes in them, just sew up the holes ya dingus! For your health!
I was taught how to hand sew in school for an art project and it has been so useful. As a teenager I was intentionally getting damaged clothes at the thrift store for extra cheap and sewing them back up myself.
I need to re-do the patches on my jacket that I applied with fabric glue and want to just sew them on, but IDK how to do the ones that are over the breast pockets because I can’t get my hand fully inside to stitch it up. I don’t want to stitch the pocket itself shut.
Edit: Curved needles. Curved. Needles! 😊 Gonna need to see if I can get one at Micheal’s since my little repair kit doesn’t have one.
Can you post a picture?
Iron on patches are your friend for areas like this. Curved needles as someone else suggested also work.
But because I hate my hands, I almost always just unstitch the pocket and lining, sew the patches on, and then reconstruct the pocket and lining. Probably don’t do this, I get hyper fixated on projects and do things the long way round.
These all are iron on, actually. The glue was because the adhesive that was on most of them sucked. The Trash Club patch was great; but it’s been 5 years and it’s starting to peel.
Yeah, you’re pretty out of option for an older iron on patch. Curved needles are your best bet if you’re comfortable using them. I hate using them personally, another reason I’ll unstitch and hand sew it back together. I’ve got a machine to do some of the heavy lifting, though
Love the patches. The pockets seem rather big, so the problem is not that you aren’t getting anything in, but that you cannot comfortably put the needle from inside to the outside? And I guess it is too thick to go in and out with the same stitch? If this would somewhat work you could consider a thimble, I recently rediscovered that little metal thing and it saved me a couple of times. Gets you through thick layers as long as your needle is stable (or you’re willing to sacrifice 4-5 needles for a project).
Are the patches decorative or functional? If they are decorative (i.e. covering up imperfections) you would only need a couple of stitches to hold them in place, right? Or try another glue? If they are functional (i.e. covering up holes and necessary for integrity) you would need a more profound stitch. In that case, would you consider ripping the seam on the side of the pocket to open it up? That would allow you to have better access. Once you’re done you’d obviously have to sew the pocket back on.
The other alternative is to find a friend with a kid that has small hands and pay them in gummi bears for their labor.
The pocket actually looks bigger on the outside; only about 1/4 of the whole square you see actually is the pocket, so yeah; I can’t comfortably get the needle back out once inside. If I could even use my sewing machine, I would have already done it. But also: I never knew that’s what thimbles were for. Now I’d have to find one that fits my fat thumb lol It would help sew the one on the pocket flap.
I was almost even just contemplating cutting the pocket out, sewing the patch on, then sewing the pocket back in place. But I don’t trust my sewing skills that much.
What you need is a curved needle: it will allow you to sew from the top without ever needing to have access to the underside. They are cheap and widely available. When you use one to sew your patch to the pocket, you can use your hand to keep the pocket expanded, or even better put something small and solid in it to keep the two layers separated while you whipstitch the patch down from the top. Watch a video on how to use curved needles for repair.
Going by name, there are two kinds of curved needles sold: upholstery and embroidery. You absolutely want the embroidery kind: the upholstery needles are huge, made for much larger projects, and would make the fine work you are trying to do very difficult. Also, if it’s there (doesn’t look like it is on your patch) you can pare down any hard coating on the underside of the patches around the edges without disturbing the patch itself, which will make it easier to get a needle through the patch when you go to put it on.
And wax your thread: pull it lightly across a candle to coat it a tiny bit, then pass it between two fingers to soften it into the thread. (There are also commercial products that you do not have, but a candle is fine in a pinch.) This keeps your thread from tangling more than it has to, and lubes it a bit for the sewing. It’s not essential, but it makes everything so much easier that I never hand sew without it.
If you get a thread that closely matches the beige of the patch it won’t matter how sloppy your stitches are, because they won’t be seen. But if you can, wash it and clean the grime off as much as possible before you do this, because it’s hard to match thread to dirty fabric. Also, when you are trying to match thread, sometimes value (light and dark) matters more than color. Because you’re sewing a lighter colored patch, if you can’t find an exact match, choose the closest one but go a shade lighter: the dark will stand out more on a lighter background. (It’s the opposite for darker materials, where you err toward the darker thread instead.)
If you have any problems or questions, feel free to hit me up. I’ve been doing my own hand and machine sewing for decades.
EDITED to add: Here’s a brief video on whipstitching a felt patch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NLr1r5ZMAM - she’s not using a curved needle, but this is the stitch you want.
A video showing how to used a curved needle for repair is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJUuPHDPTyc. He’s using an upholstery needle with pliers, you can see just how big and unwieldy that thing is, but that’s essentially how you use a curved needle to sew from the top only on pretty much any project.
Honestly, I have no clue what thimbles are for. But I realized at some point this year that instead of using some hard surface to push my needle through assy material and/or hurt my finger pressing too much, I can just… Use a metal thing that sits on the right spot.
Also I know this sounds weird but go to a shop and try them on. It’s weird how much a good fit helps.
The cutting out would probably be the way to go. I mean you could flap it, so it stays connected to the right spot, maybe it’s time for you to be brave and risk it. Especially since you have a sewing machine! That means the seam can turn out quite nice when put back in place. Anyway, good luck and updates are appreciated!
i’m just a novice, but this looks like maybe a narrow curved needle, like for darning socks and shit, might be your friend.
I patched some holes in my pants, I have zero sewing experience just kinda winged it, but to keep from sewing the two sides together I just used a piece of cardboard in between
like, undoing the liner a little bit to get your hand all up ins, or something else?
Don’t forget to pick up a tin of cookies at the dollar store when you get your kit. You get snacks and a place to store your sewing supplies that is needle-poke-proof.
I prefer a floss container. Bonus, you get floss for thread.
That’s pretty smart! Would be a good travel size. I like the nostalgia of a cookie tin but yeah, not very portable.
Just be careful with the thread and needles you’re not using/watching if you have a cat.
I hate sewing, but it has saved me thousands of dollars over my lifetime and I am convinced that everyone should know how to do it unless they really don’t care about money.
