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guitarnan
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 3:05pm | IP Logged
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In my favorite Betsy-Tacy books, Betsy's friend Tib comes over and mends all her clothes while they chat. (What a friend!) Since I don't have Tib living down the street, I'm wondering if any of you have good tips for keeping up with mending/repair tasks for clothing and shoes.
I am okay with hand-sewing and sewing machine tasks (basic ones - my machine is 23 years old). We tend to have a lot of worn-out spots, torn-off pocket corners, and stains at our house. Shoes take a beating, too, particularly mine, since I can't wear too many styles with my current foot issues.
All tips (Tibs?!) appreciated... 
Thanks!
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 3:08pm | IP Logged
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funny you should ask.. I'm sitting here at the computer stitching around the knee patches on a pair of sweats. I've found a rhythm of reading when I don't need to be looking at my sewing, glancing down to look when needed and reading more.
Of course I had to stop to type 
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 3:33pm | IP Logged
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ok finished that. I love iron on patches.. but the edges almost always pull up.. ending up looking almost worse than the holey knees I start with. And for play clothes.. they're so much nicer and protect those active little knees to have patches on them.
And middle of the leg of a pair of pants are rather hard to reach with a standard sewing machine. So I tend to just do a fast whip stitch around the edge of the patch by hand.. that makes the patch stay looking nice much longer.
And you can get this iron on stuff for appliques.. that let's you use any fabric at all as a patch.. so you can match colors or make patches decorative or whatever. The ones I just did match in color but are a different texture and they look cute.
I've done a decorative one for a skirt.. it was a solid chambrey color.. I cut out a heart from fabric with flowers on a light blue and patched on both sides of the skirt and didn't even need to stitch it.. it wasn't a wearing spot but rather a small tear. It ended up looking rather like just a pretty accent on the skirt than a repair.
I don't know much about keeping up with shoes.. though I have colored over scuffs on children's black dress shoes with a sharpie marker
Right now I have this pair of nice heels that I really like.. but they're brown.. a lovely brown color.. but I rarely wear brown and wear a LOT of black. I've considered how to change them to black.. somehow I think coloring them with a sharpie probably isn't the best method though
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 10:41pm | IP Logged
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guitarnan wrote:
| All tips (Tibs?!) appreciated... |
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No but I'm all ears (eyes). My mending basket is full to overflowing. 
Oh, one tip I heard once was to leave stuff in the mending basket until they outgrow it.
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Michele Quigley
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MaryM
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 12:45am | IP Logged
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MicheleQ wrote:
Oh, one tip I heard once was to leave stuff in the mending basket until they outgrow it. |
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I am quite skillful at that...
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Mary M. in Denver
Our Domestic Church
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dakotamidnight
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 6:44am | IP Logged
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I just don't do mending on my daughter's stuff - at the prices I buy it {never more than $2 per item, normally under $1} it's not an effective use of my time.
As for mine, it normally can be mended in a few minutes on my machine.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 8:59am | IP Logged
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I have a darning kit that I inherited when our elderly neighbor died. I have holes in my (pricey) wool sock that I know I should mend, but it is so hard to do that sort of thing with babies around.
I think part of the reason someone like Ma Ingalls was able to take care of her things was because she didn't have many things--I mean, there is no way her house could look as chaotic as mine does right now because every thing she owned strewed around would not make a mess this size. There are no bins or baskets or shelves full of anything for the baby/kids to dump/dismantle.
Off-topic, I suppose, but in my [romantic] minds eye, the person in her rocker by the fire darning socks is either A)Ma Ingalls darning one of two pairs that they own, or B)Anne darning while Cook (what was her name? Martha?) makes dinner and cleans the kitchen.
The trial of modernity seems to be owning as much stuff as wealthy people of the past but being left to take care of it all by yourself.
One thing we do consistently here is buy nice leather shoes and polish regularly having them repaired and resoled for years before buying new ones. My husband was polishing my shoes for Easter, and they came out looking like new, but they'd looked so awful before, it occurred to me that many people would have thrown them out long ago.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Servant2theKing
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 11:14am | IP Logged
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Fabric and materials were of much better quality in the days when mending was practiced more faithfully. I think so many of the skills needed for mending have gone by the wayside in great part because it isn't always worthwhile to put a quality patch on an inferior item. As some pointed out already, it's often cheaper to just replace, especially at garage sale or thrift store prices.
That said, we mend all the time, especially when it's a simple fix like a seam or hard-to-find items, such as boys' dress pants or winter coats (those usually require hand sewing). I try to mend as soon as an item requires it, before it hits the laundry, so tears don't worsen.
In my youth, I patched all my favorite clothes, since we were too poor to replace things and we didn't have garage sales or thrift stores. I used to embroider the inside and edges of cloth patches with various fancy stitches that I learned from a very old embroidery book of my grandmother's. I remember French knots, flower petals and certain border stitches being my favorites.
One little tip that really helps is to keep several needles already threaded with various colors of thread...I used to pin them inside the top of a curtain, near our kitchen table, ready for quick fixes. Nowadays, I have a piece of adhesive magnet inside my plastic sewing box, but the threads often get tangled...I think I need to return to keeping threaded needles inside the curtain.
BTW, dd recently sent me a package of self-threading hand needles, made by Singer...they thread from the top...no more squinting to find the eye of the needle! The design is quite ingenious but difficult to explain...the thread is pushed down between two little prongs on the top and there is a little prong that holds the thread inside the notch. I have very fond memories of threading needles for my grandmother, when her eyesight was more fragile...since my own eyes have begun to strain, much more than I care to admit, when threading a needle, these new needles are a real blessing!
Jodie, I noticed KIWI makes roll-on shoe dye...our local Walmart had it when I was looking for shoe polish before Easter.
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Erin
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 4:05pm | IP Logged
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guitarnan wrote:
I'm wondering if any of you have good tips for keeping up with mending/repair tasks for clothing and shoes.
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Invite your mil to visit
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Erin
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 4:12pm | IP Logged
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oh another thing you might consider.. buying good quality.. like we get the kids Columbia brand winter coats. They last for years.. I figure each jacket is worn about 6 months out of the year.. and each jacket lasts at least 3 seasons.. I still have one that's had 5 seasons and is waiting for my 3 yr old to grow big enough to use it again for another 2.
I buy them on clearance but new.. so all the warrenty is intact.
Out of all the coats we've had.. we had ONE jacket that the zipper broke (the little piece at the bottom that the other side slides into.. it cracked so that the zipper would pull apart from the bottom.
Well, I contacted Columbia. The put in a whole new zipper and the only thing I paid was shipping to get the jacket to them. 
So while it's not repairing it myself.. it is buying something that not only is it worth it to get repaired but the company will do it.. and we get our money's worth out of them easily..
If a jacket works for at least 3 seasons, it's cheaper than buying a cheap jacket that lasts for one. I buy in the spring when things are on major clearance.. get $100 or more jackets for $30 or so.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 4:19pm | IP Logged
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Servant2theKing wrote:
| Jodie, I noticed KIWI makes roll-on shoe dye...our local Walmart had it when I was looking for shoe polish before Easter. |
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My parents always balked at the roll on stuff unless it was for a cheap pair of shoes because it could ruin a good pair. I'm not sure why because I've never used it because my mother told me not to.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 4:24pm | IP Logged
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so what sort of dye can you get? is there something other than the roll on?
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 4:41pm | IP Logged
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Oh we just used polish, not the paint on stuff.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 5:18pm | IP Logged
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I got a black polish and used it and it didn't change the color at all.. maybe I didn't get the right type?
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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sewcrazy
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Flylady told a story about mending that I loved:
"A grandmother asked all of her granddaughters to come over because she had an important lesson to teach them. They had to bring over their holey socks and she would would teach them how to darn socks. They weren't thrilled, but all her granddaughters came over with their holey socks. After a nice snack and a bit of a chat, grandma said it was time to get down to business. She picked up the first holey sock, held it over the trash can and said 'DARN' and dropped the sock into the trash. She repeated the proceedure with each sock. She then gave each girl a new pack of socks"
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LeeAnn
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guitarnan
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 8:40pm | IP Logged
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LeeAnn, your story is hilarious!!!
And realistic. We don't have time these days to darn socks. We buy new ones. But, with jeans and leather shoes, we should think about extending their useful lives.
I guess this all stems, for me, from the fact that my dh wears size 15D shoes. All of his shoes are expensive and hard to find. He works hard to make them last. He has shoes from 25 years ago that we've resoled, repaired and polished, and they look brand-new. They have to, because we just can't head off to DiscountShoes and get new ones.
I'm hoping that there's a happy medium for clothing AND shoes, so I can figure out when to mend and polish and when to chuck disintegrating shoes.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 14 2010 at 9:13pm | IP Logged
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there are times I would love to know how to really darn a sock.. we get good wool socks for winter here.. and when a sock is good except for a fairly small hole.. it's frustrating.
But let me tell you.. I'm the first to "darn socks" to the trash can when they're just the white tube socks or ankle socks or such.
Nancy, I try hard to get a good value but spend more for quality in shoes that take a lot of wear.. my winter boots for instance. DH's work boots.. firefighter's boots take a lot of abuse.. we spent the money and got him 2 pairs of custom boots and now can just send then in on a rotating basis to get them resoled and fixed up for another 2 years or so. It does save money.. but less than you might think.. maybe about 1/3 of the cost if that. But when it's every 2 yrs I figure it adds up anyway.
BUT things like the little black flats I wear for Church most of the time.. I can get a cheap pair at payless shoes.. I wear them for 2-3 hours a week and even cheap shoes last when that's how much wear they get.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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LucyP
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 5:23am | IP Logged
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I have a couple of older books that tell how to darn socks, and I do darn the more expensive or hand knitted ones. Cheap and cheerful I just bin when I notice a hole but good socks I will try to get to darn before there is an actual hole. I don't very often mend my children's clothes as they are active little people, and wear and tear and stains mean that it would be pretty useless to spend time mending. But some things I do mend - DD has a pricey dress/leggings combo that she fell over in and ripped a hole in the legging knee, and I did an applique patch on that. I do applique or embriodery over stains on good clothes, dye badly stained things, and I do mend my and DH's clothes, mainly because we have very few and if I don't we will need to sew together fig leaves! Having a neat, lidded or covered basket that can stay out in an area near where I sit regularly, means I will often pick something up and work on it.
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sewcrazy
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 7:03pm | IP Logged
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I do darn wool socks and tights. I mend my dh's clothes and mine, and some of my oldest son's.
I enjoy Food Network and in the evening I sit and mend while watching. Its how I give myself "permission" to watch TV
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LeeAnn
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Karen T
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged
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I darn all my wool socks, esp the ones I hand knit myself. It doesn't take long if you catch it before the hole gets large, or even while it's just a thin spot.
I patch the kids' jeans with patches I make from the old worn-out pairs that aren't even thriftable anymore, or when I cut off legs to make shorts. Sometimes I will do it partially on the machine by shoving the leg as far as I can on the free-arm but I still have to handsew the other sides so usually just do the whole thing by hand. I don't like the iron-ons b/c the adhesive never holds long and trying to sew through the glue is worse.
I turn a lot of worn-out jeans for dd into capris or shorts, adding some rickrack or ribbon. I don't mend the thin cotton stuff like T shirts often. I hate that our society has become so throw-away but it's hard to even find quality clothing to buy, esp for kids. most is made in china and is designed to wear out in a season so you have to buy more (read Brave new World for chilling parallels to today)
I prefer to sew better clothing but just don't have time to make enough, and even then you still need quality fabric to start with or it's much the same outcome.
I take holey T shirts and cut them into strips to make bathrugs, etc from, or sometimes can cut doll clothing out of the fabric.
I have frequently pulled something out to mend and realized it'd been outgrown, and breathed a sigh of relief.
karen T in Md
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: The Mending Basket
