Get crafty! 3 ways to mend and repair your clothes

This week, we’re looking at three different ways to mend and repair your clothes, from the basics of quick fix stitches to the more extravagant flourishes that can take a ripped piece of clothing and give it a new lease of life.

There’s nothing more heart-breaking than the day that you bend over and your favourite pair of jeans let out that fateful sccrrrrrrtttccch sound.  Nor is there anything more frustrating than your kid coming home from school — for what seems like the bajillionth time — with holes in the knees of their trousers.  And let’s not forget how frustrating it is when — usually just after the festive period — you sit down and — pop! — your button and your trousers have a sudden and explosive falling out. 

But before you go running into the loving arms of the ASOS sale, you might be able to fix your clothes with a trusty needle and thread! Plus! Not only is it incredibly easy to mend and repair your clothes, but it’s significantly better for the planet too. (Fast fashion — the habit of throwing clothes away rather than keeping them, mending them and using them for years — is really bad for the planet.)

So, we thought we’d put together three techniques to mend and repair your clothes, from the basics — like sewing up rips and putting buttons back on — to the more adventurous and creative approaches that make your clothes look even better than they did before.

3 Ways to Mend and Repair Your Clothes

#1: The Basics

Now, if you’re thinking about ways to mend and repair your clothes, you really need to know the basics.

You need to know your way around a needle. You need to know a few handy stitches. And you need to be prepared to mess things up a few times before you get it right.

And so, rather than writing long instructions on how to learn those skills — which would fill this article with confusing, hard-to-picture instructions like: take the needle and push it through the fabric, loop it around and back through again, then do a figure of eight, cross the thread over and tie it off — we thought we’d collect some of favourite tutorial videos that you can follow along with at home.

In fact, there’s a fantastic YouTube playlist of 13 videos that show you the basics of repairing and mending your clothes, from fixing a rip in your jeans to turning them into shorts to sewing buttons back onto your shirt.

If you’re ever in a pickle and need to mend or repair your clothes, check it out.

#2: Use embroidery to fix a hole and add some eye-catching detail to your clothes!

Ever heard the phrase: if you can’t fix it, feature it?

Well, this technique is the perfect example of that.

Because let’s face it, there are some rips and tears that — no matter how good you are with a needle and thread — you’re never going to be able to hide well enough that your clothes look as good as new.

However, that doesn’t have to be a reason to throw them in the bin and go running into the warm embrace of the never-ending ASOS sale.

This technique — and technique #3, in fact — are ways of fixing your clothes so that they look even better than they did before by the time you’re done.

So grab your bright threads and embrace your ripped clothes as a canvas for your creativity.

Here’s a great compilation of a few eye-catching designs to get some inspiration:

#3: Sashiko and Boro

Going all the way back to the 17th century, people from Japan have been patching up their clothing using scraps of old kimonos or hemp fabric so that they could pass it on down through generations and generations.

And when you borrow two techniques from the Japanese — boro, the art of mending clothes that literally translates as rags and sashiko, a form of embroidery that literally translates as little stabs — you end up with an eye-catching, sturdy technique for fixing tougher fabrics, like jeans, rucksacks and jackets.

And you help save the planet, too.

Again, we’re not going to bore you with long instructions on how to do it. Instead, we’ve found an awesome, 2-minute video that runs through everything you need to know.

How awesome do they look?

Happy stitching!