Darn it!

Per the request from the flicker forum, I thought an entire post on darning would be a good thing to have.

It was strange, I looked through about 6 of my vintage sewing books and most of them had at least a paragraph dedicated to the art of patching and darning. None, however covered the territory like The Complete Book of Sewing. I will post the entire section later in this post.

Darning and patching can be some of the best tools to shape up a worn wardrobe. I'm surprised that more people don't do it. This make n mender did a great tutorial on darning jeans.

I do think there are some misconceptions that we need to get over when we talk about darning/patching.

• 1) You will always see the mend.
• 2) The process does not take as long as you think. For the practice ones I'm going to show, they took no more than an hour. Not too bad to get regular wear back from your garment. And these were both done by hand.

I prefer to do a mend by hand, especially if the repair is on the bias. Why? I find hand sewing is a bit looser than machine sewing, and if its concentrated in a worn area, the mend has the tendency to work with the fabric, instead of being like a 'brick wall' against the fabric. Hope that made sense.

Tutorial one: Mending a hole.

eBay Loss of the Month

I was saddened to watch this one go. I had been scoping it for the entire week, thinking I could get it for less than $15. HA! Shows what I know about vintage glass! Its a cool darning egg. The bottom unscrews and thread and needles can be stored inside. I had *no* idea there was such a darning egg collecting syndicate out there!

It went for $53.

Man.

Make due and Mending

This has been a week of mending and finishing past projects.

I repaired 6 pairs of pants that I had made. Contrary to popular belief, yes, you still need to maintain clothing you make.

The 40s corduroy slacks that I made had a rather loose weave and well, kept pulling. At first I paid no mind, and then it got noticeable. Crud.

To make it easy on myself (and not have to take off the waist band) I opened the damaged area, and using a modern cheat, I applied stitch witchery over the damaged area, and covered that with a strip of thin cotton.

I then resewed the seam, about 1/5" in. To adjust for the loss of size, I redid (or on once case completely opened) the front darts. This is a fine fix for me, besides, these paints might become a skirt some day anyway.

Another project I completed was the second of my varied run of three of my blackface series "Happy Bellboy with Towel and Smiling Mammy in a Flower Dress". Ive always had an obsession with blackface content, or the more PC term used now, 'black americana'. Yeah, whatever.

These are more crafty in that their bodies are sewn like dolls. I made the pattern for them, then sewed them as well. I like the process of hand sewing, which I had to do to put them together.

The bodies are sewn to the paper with thread and backing buttons so the rag paper wouldnt tear. They are rather time consuming, but seeing as how I finished my first pair in '06, its kind of interesting to see how I have improved sewing wise as I finished these. I have one more pair to do. Perhaps they will get me back into sewing.

Ive been in a bit of a sewing rut lately. I have great fabric, and cool patterns but I dont *need* anymore clothes right now. So, not much sewing. I do have an upcoming project in the works.

Ive been invited to a 'depression era' picnic near the end of February, and I dont have a ting to wear. I want something nice, light and very dust bowl. Im going to use this pattern and make a linen cloche. I think that would work. Anyway, Im excited about it, and will post progress!

Now its on to an evening of darning socks. Dont be jealous.