Remember your favorite blue jeans getting a tear in it? Or just wearing out? In the 60’s and 70’s the way to repair them was by darning them on the sewing machine. I hated the ugly look of darning, but my daughter-in-law and a friend of hers had me darn some clothing items and they were thrilled. They were just so excited that they could wear their favorite item again. Hmm. Different perspective on the same thing.
Another way we repaired our clothes was by putting a premade patch over the hole. I found the little castle in my sewing room collection of odds and ends.
We also used a lot of trim. When the pants got too short we would let out the hem and cover the worn edge with trim. If we needed to lengthen them more than that, we would add more trim to the bottom edge of the pants. Tada! We could wear them for the rest of the school year. I remember being surprised that even my cousins who were guys would have added trim to the bottom of their pants. It was the era of bell bottoms and hippies.
The most time consuming way of covering unsightly holes, tears, or stains was to hand embroider on them. Put some fabric on the back to cover the hole and embroider some cute design on your jeans.
I added sashiko to my piece because it fascinates me. I only learned about it through the quilt world, but it is an old technique that helped the poor in Asian countries save their clothing. Without a way to get more fabric to make a new garment or purchase a new one they would put fabric over the hole and stitch it in place. They did a lot more stitching than I did, but it gives you a look at another way to repair clothing.
