Mending Monday #4: Kapow

Ahoy there. Apologies for the slight delay. Work happened, or life, or something. 

Anywayz. It's May! Just how did that happen?  One minute it's snowing, and then the sun is shining again and summer is just around the corner. Amazingly, the springiness of the weather, has also returned my sewjo, and over the weekend I blitzed my mending pile like a crazy mending ninja. KAPOW!

Just like that, I stormed through:

• 2 pairs of boys trousers that needed a button replacing (for those waistband elastic adjustor things, you know)
• One girls frilly tutu that needed a bit of waistband stitching to be redone
• Repairs to a toddler grobag (sleeping bag thingy)
• Two mummy-made girls tops that needed fixing in the under arm area
• One pair of boys trousers that needed patching and fixing 
• A school cardigan that needed an under-arm repair (oh - I see a pattern here - something about that girl and her armpits!)
• 7 dribble bibs that have been waiting for poppers
• overlocking the internal seams on dress I made in sometime in the late 1990s.  

That dress I mention, I did really make it in the 1990s. Probably 1997 or 1998 when I lwas a student. It's some kind of rather loose weave viscose, which frays badly, and which I bought from the absolutely fabulous Abakhan Fabrics in Liverpool. I still have a couple of other bits of fabric in my stash from that time too! Overlockers hadn't been invented when I made the dress, and although I probably knew about finishing my raw edges, I didn't. I didn't have pinking shears until after 2003... Anyway - despite being rather see through and having a wonky hem, this dress is still in my wardrobe, still fits and is still the sort of thing I like to wear. I can't work out if that means I have timeless style, or just no style at all. Sigh.

After that flying start, who knows what the rest of May will bring? What are you mending today?

Mending Monday 2016: #3 it's a holey-holeyday

Way back in the mists of time, before the internet and Taylor Swift were invented, I knitted myself a cardigan. It's from Rowan magazine 21, shown on the front cover. 

I have always rebelled it seems, and I knitted it in a nice wool based yarn (Jaeger wool DK I think), not the cotton yarn the pattern was written for. Anywayz. I have worn it a lot - for a long time it was the sort of thing I wore to work. Then the elbows started to develop holes and I patched them up and it became a cosy old friend to wear around the house. Gradually more and more bits of it are wearing thin or coming apart, but I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to it yet. 

Before Christmas I started knitting something for the bean, and realised that the yarn was pretty much the same colour as this cardigan of mine. Last week, I sat down to do some mending and spent a little bit of time patching up the holes and frayed cuffs.

Five or ten minutes, sitting in the light and stitching away. I was talking to my daughter at the same time - you can see her feet in the bottom picture - she is wearing handknitted socks that I made for her older brother a year or two back. That's the sort of housework I like!

Mending Monday 2016: #2 Visible Mending

It was Kids Clothes Week last week. I did my best to fit in some kids clothing related crafting each day. 

On Monday night I spent a lazy hour or may be less, darning the knee in a pair of toddler trousers. The trousers are old - handed down to us, and no doubt used by several children before they came to live with us. There are worn and cosy, in a useful muddy green needlecord, with a snuggly jersey lining. 

The first knee went into a hole a while back, and I used some embroidery thread to patch it up. Rather than attach a patch on top of the hole, I just stitched the two layers into a place in a messy jumble of stitches. The lining fabric didn't have a hole - just the outer layer. 

The second knee had the misfortune of developing a hole whilst at nursery, so there was plenty of time for small fingers to enlarge the opening - but, as before, the hole was only in the worn corduroy, and not the inner lining. By the time I got them off the toddler in question, the rip was quite large. I approached this hole in the same way - using embroidery thread to anchor the two layers together. 

Neither repairs are neat or tidy. But, they seem to be working. The first repair is holding up well, and we are ekeing out a little bit more wear from these well worn and well-loved trousers. I think they will do until the little bean grows out of them. 

Mending Monday 2016 #1

Hello chaps.

The new year has heightened my desire to mend stuff. Or, maybe it's just that I'm in tidying up mode and have been sorting things out like a demon. Anywayz, sometime in the Christmas melee, I got my sock needlez out and rummaged in the darkest corners of my knitting bag for a pair of socks that needed repairz. 

(Sorry about the z thing, I'll stop now. Promize)

Here they are in all their newly knitted glory sometime ago (2011 I think!). But they were getting dangerously thin on the ball of the foot, and needed some repairs. Of course, I decided not to darn the darn things, but rather to reknit a goodly portion of the foot.

I chose the spot, snipped a single stitch and then carefully picked up the live stitches with my needles.

As the original socks are striped using two yarns, I picked out two sympathetic yarn colours from the stash and got to work. They aren't a perfect match, but hey, these dudes will be on my feet and unless I am at home, they will be inside my shoes and Noone Will Ever Know.  Okay? 

This time I alternated the colours stitch by stitch rather than round by round to give a thicker and more durable fabric. I did this before with my socksperimental socks
and the man socks with a squidgy toe. Scientists have not yet reported on the outcomes of these important sock trials; an independent commission has been established to examine the reasons for the non-reporting. It is expected that resignations will follow. 

Where was I? Oh yes, re-socking: a surpisingly short time later (silent witness anyone?) the blighters were done and on my feet.  Hurrah for mending. Hurrah for hand-knitted socks. Hurrah for extensive sock yarn collections. Hurrah for me! 

Ahem. 

My reward for mending these socks is to make myself a cowlowlowlowl. Not sure about the pattern yet, but have picked out the yarn...

Making Monday #10: here endeth the lesson

You will be glad to hear that after all the cursing two weeks ago, I managed to get that scrap hat finished and sent off to my brother in time for his birthday (Happy Birthday, bro!).

After I fell foul of the knitting gods over the whole brim thing, I took a few deep breaths, and possibly a sip of gin, I considered my options. I couldn't see a way of fudging or incorporating the extra stitches into a spiffy new design feature. So, that really only left one option - to detach the brim and then reknit using the frogged yarn. If ever there was a lesson in ultimate yarn thrift, this is it!

Here is the finished hat, with a reknitted brim. 

As is usual for my scrap hats, there was a knitted lining - seen here - , which I also needed to rework. I frogged and reknitted for two reasons:

1. after making that rookie mistake with stitch numbers, I wasn't going to get caught out again (shakes fist at knitting gods), and 

2. because the outside of the hat is mostly wool or wool mix, it has shrunk a bit with inappropriate washing over time. The lining for this hat is made with cotton yarn (a bit cooler than double wool as this is a summer hat, obvs!) and hadn't shrunk, so it was a bit saggy. 

I picked up stitches inside the brim and knitted the innards using a 2x2 rib. 

Nice huh? Remaking and repairing is just as satisfying as making new things I find. What are you mending today? I'd love to hear...

Making Monday #9: pocketses

Here we go again, some more mending to share. This time, it's of my own creation. See here, a fine pair of enjoyable purpley velvet troosers, I bought a couple of years back. They have quite a lot of stretch (good) but on the downside, the corners of the pockets started to tear quite soon after I bought them. Major apathy and a newish baby, meant I couldn't be ar$ed to take them back (pun intentional) at the time.

As I've been mending my way through these last few months, I picked them out of the mending basket a couple of weeks ago, and zigzagged across the weak points with my machine. Despite having enough thread to sink a small ship, I didn't have anything that matched these fine trews. The upshot - as you can see - is a natty and bold explosion of bright blue across my b u m.

Yay! another quick mending project and a garment restored to full use....

Except. 

Last week, the bean (age 8) told me I had holes in my trousers. I think he observed them while I was on the floor doing a jigsaw with little bean (age 2). So, despite the repairs holding firm, the fabric -  in combination with my ar$e area and my energetic bending/stretching lifestyle(!) - means that these fine trews are in the unwearable pile. Again.

Sigh. 

Mending Monday #8: hat it again (or what knitting taught me this week)

It doesn't seem possible that my house/life has quite so much mending in it, but I am not making it up, people. I live with ruffians I tell you. 

I saw my brother recently and he presented me with a very sorry looking hat. It is one of the three scrap hats I have given him over the years (he wears a hat most of the time, even in the summer. No, I don't understand it either). One of the yarns I had used had started to disintegrate with the result that the hat was developing organised holes in various places. I say organised because the fabric and stitches around was intact, so picking up live stitches seemed fairly straightforward.

Here you can see one of the smaller holes.

This hole was a bit more dramatic. As there was a complete round or two of dodgy yarn here, it soon parted company with the rest of the hat. It looked very scary, but I did my best not to panic. I cant possibly comment on rumours about gin. 

Anywayz, I made a start with some duplicate stitch over the top of some of dodgier areas, and to fill in the gaps in the smaller holes near the top of the hat. 

Once that was all fixed, I moved onto repairing the body of the hat. I ripped out the dodgy yarn and picked up stitches around the bottom of the hat. I needed to add some length back in to compensate for the bits lost through dodgy yarn and felting. It was all going so well. I was bossing it big style. I added a few more rounds and then set about grafting the new live stitches to the old live stitches of the brim. 

Me and old Kitchener are great friends, and I am sure (although I have never tried) that I could successfully graft a sock toe in near darkness. I set about the great graft. I took it steady, working on groups of 10 stitches at a time just to break it up a bit, and allow myself an opportunity to drink tea, wrangle children or put it down occasionally. I didn't think I would be able to guarantee a whole 6 hours of uninterrupted grafting that this would surely involve.

I did half of the grafting and then stopped for some family event (dinner maybe). After bed time, I picked up the hat again. I was going to nail this mother. I grafted and grafted and grafted. I sipped my drink, I admired my work. It was looking so good. I was down to the last 30 stitches, the last 20, the last .... 

Um. Something didn't look right. I looked again. I stopped. The knitting demons laughed and laughed. 

The remaining numbers of stitches did not match. It wasn't a fudgeable 1 or 2 stitch discrepancy it was EIGHT - 8! Eight whole stitches had somehow disappeared between the brim and the rest of the hat. 

I should have counted my stitches. I should have counted my stitches. 

There endeth today's lesson. 

to be continued... 

Mending Monday #7: pyjamarama

No patches this time (phew), but just a straightforward seam repair on some pyjama bottoms. 

Overlocker to the rescue!

What are you mending today? I'd love to hear about it - so please leave a comment!

Mending Monday #6

More patches on knees here (yes, the stream of holes does seem to be never ending, thanks for asking). This time a pair of worn cords have been rescued from the can't-be-worn pile. 

They belonged to the bean, but are now much too small (nothing to do with languishing in the mending basket, ahem). 

I ironed on a couple of those cute car patches again (see the iron shapes?) using my friend bondaweb. 

And then, I got my Boro mojo on again and stitched on top to secure the patches really firmly. You can see that I took care to stitch across the edges of the patches to make them extra secure.  You know, because boys.

Cute huh? They are much too big for little bean, but have been stashed in the appropriate place for later.

Mending Monday #5

This week I was inspired to approach my mending in a different way, and rather than just slap some patches on the outside, I took a different path.

Reading around on the tinterwebz somewhere or other, I came across Boro - the Japanese name for a very specific type of repaired textile. The examples I saw all seemed to be blue, repaired with indigo thread and patches, and knowing I had a wee pair of toddler jeans to repair I set to to work.

First I found some suitable patch material, culled from an old top of mine. I cut two patches, and roughly worked out where to place them on the trousers. Then I marked on a stencil of dots to guide my stitch work. I used one of the children's washable markers and a ruler to give me a rough grid to work with.

I pinned the patches in place inside the trousers, and then set to work, stitching across and then up and down to create teeny crosses. 

The inside is fairly neat - and I caught the edges of the patch with a simple running stitch.

Mending Monday #4

More patches.

Two velvety hearts for the jelly bean. I started with one

but she insisted on patches on both knees.

Mending Monday #3

When I was pregnant with the little bean I stole borrowed a couple of my husband's merino wool sweaters. They were warm and comfy and roomy enough for a growing bump. Perfect to throw on over pyjamas, or with work clothes, or any time I needed a cozy layer to keep me warm. 

My fondness for these sweaters has not abated and we have now perfected our system for sharing these fine garments. The man wears them first, and when an elbow hole appears (as verily it shall), he willingly gives the sweater to his wife. Sometimes she mends the hole and wears the sweater herself. Sometimes she just wears it without mending the hole. Yes dear readers, I am a Bad Woman. 

Elbow repairs were needed recently, and couldn't be put off any longer, so I found some suitable sock wool and a needle and set to work. I love the whole visible mending thing that Tom of Holland has perfected, so I went for a circle on one elbow, and a square on the other. 

I started with the outline of the shape in running stitch, and then worked a basic darning stitch across the hole. The circle darn is a bit less tidy than the square one, but I don't think anyone will be checking for consistency.

I'm not quite sure why I haven't tried to persuade my other half to wear a darned jumper - I have offered to sew on elbow patches for him. So far he has declined my offers. Funny that. 

Mending Monday #2

A different sort of mending is going on here at the moment.

Its nothing to do with sewing, and all to do with repairing flesh. I fell on Saturday and shredded the palms of my hands - along with nose and chin - on a gravel path. I was doing some running, as you do - and suddenly I wasn't running but flying. And, then I landed. 

O U C H.

It wasn't pretty. 

Crafting has taken a back seat.

Excuse me while I put my feet up. I might be here a while, okay. Just talk amongst yourselves...

[I am okay btw, just flesh wounds and severe bashing of pride and confidence]

Mending Monday #1

My active children, who love climbing trees and doing sliding tackles on the lawn and lots of other rough and tumble things, can be quite hard on their clothes. The jelly bean in particular seems to have an ability to shred the knees of a pair of leggings in no time at all. 

I don't mind at all (and feel a little bit proud when I am shown a hole that happened during whilst climbing a tree) - but I do seem to have a never ending mending pile. I have thusly declared that Mondays will henceforth be Mending Monday, when I dedicate whatever small portion of the day remains after everything else is done, to the activity of mending. 

Some recent casualties, here awaiting triage. 

Today, then is about patches. 

These trousers belong to the bean - but need a swift repair before 8 year old fingers make that wee hole a lot bigger and turn the trousers from mendable to binnable. 

As the trousers are lined (see that blue lining peeking out?), I didn't want to sew patches on with my machine. The potential for wonky/twisted and uncomfortable results was too high, so out came the bondaweb. 

I went for a patch on each knee, rather than just the one that was holey - and used a cute cotton fabric I picked up in a remnants bin last year sometime. I eyeballed a suitable shape, and then whizzed around with the overlocker to finish the edges. 

I might have slightly overlooked the fact that the overlocking would affect the stick at the edges of the patches. However, after ironing the patches onto the trousers, I hand-stitched the edges of the patches down. It was a bit quick and dirty, but I figured the stitches would be lost in the overlocking and noone will ever know. 

The bean put them back on at the first opportunity, and tested the newly restored knees/patches by slide tackling his way across the lawn. Those cute patches stood up well to the rough and tumble, but who knows if the grass stains will ever come out... sigh. 


Feel free to join in with the mending thing y'all. What are you mending today?