The Sewing Place
The Emporia => Embroidery and Embellishment => Topic started by: Emerion on February 10, 2019, 21:52:21 PM
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I wore my lovely new silky, patterned, jersey skirt once, and a gust of wind blew it against a car, where it caught on something sharp underneath and ripped. I’ve got a raggedy-edged hole about 4cm across on the front of the skirt, about 15cm above the hem. I have thought about shortening the skirt, as it would still be plenty long enough for me, but would really like to mend it. Is it possible to hand-sew a mend in this type of fabric? If not, can someone recommend a good skirt-shortening tutorial? It will have to be by hand, because my vintage machine only does straight stitches, so I can’t use it on jersey. Plus there’s a lot of fabric in it and I’m a beginner, so I could make a mess of either fix with very little encouragement. :)
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Hello Emerion. Welcome to the forum. :)
You could try and hand darn the tear. There's nothing to lose by trying. If it's a busy pattern it'll work better than if it's plain or light coloured.
It'd be a pity to shorten the skirt if you like it the length it is, so I wonder if it would be possible to seam the tear out? If it's a full skirt with lots of fabric in it, you could run a straight seam from just under the waist down through the hem, losing the damaged bit. If it looks odd, depending on where it's positioned, you could then make a second seam but without taking such a large chunk of fabric out, to match it up better.
Can't you get ballpoint or stretch needles for vintage machines? I use a straight stitch when I stitch jersey.
Sandra.
xxx
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Do the torn edges of the fabric go back together reasonably well? If they do, could you iron a piece of lightweight fusible interfacing on to the back?
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I agree, fuse a piece of lightweight stretch interfacing behind the tear and then hand stitch around the edge of the interfacinging and around the edges of the tear. Use a fine thread and hoefully it will be hardly noticable.
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A third vote for a scrap of the lightest weight interfacing you can find ironed onto the back of the tear. Sometimes that alone is enough, if not a few little tiny hand stitches in a thread that blend well.
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Thank you, that’s very helpful. I think I can try the interfacing,and then the seaming if that doesn’t look OK.
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I've used the interfacing method on woven and non woven items with success over the years. It's not as if it's in a part of the garment that will normally get stretched so should hold up well. If it's dark in colour try to use a charcoal colour interfacing just in case you get any show through.