What? Sewing by hand? On Purpose? And it isn't even embroidery or cross stitch? What IS the world coming to???
A friend and I have been reading up on three rather connected things: visible mending, Sashiko and Boro. All hand stitching techniques that create new from old. That repair fabrics with the addition of other fabrics. That combine to lengthen the life and beauty of fabrics, and garments, or even make something new from them. Refashion them. Create art from them (at least at some level).
One of the ideas is to extend garment life and usefulness, and create less fabric/textile waste. I'm for that.
Another of the ideas is to create new from old (sometimes even very old) by combining fabrics from various sources with hand stitched elements. Creating unique pieces, and interesting elements, and possibly art. I say possibly art, because I think art includes elements of practice, and vision that every piece may not achieve, but still doesn't lessen the utility and interest of the effects of the crafting.
And the idea of creating art in the every-day is very interesting to me as well.
There are other philosophical elements to this practice, not the least of which is a form of meditative practice achieved through comfortable repetition of a manual task. It can be achieved through the act of a hand craft like crochet, or knit, or hand sewing. I think that is interesting. I think that I can and have achieved a bit of that mindfulness during crochet, as I read about it with the hand sewing texts. I will share those books in the future, as I become more familiar with them, and can share what I am learning by reading and using them.
At the moment, though, here's my starting place. How convenient that Raine tore a pair of her pants. I offered to try the visible mending technique to fix them. I told Raine that she may or may not like the results, and that was OK. If I mended them, and she didn't like the result, she was no worse off than with the torn pants. I was only out the effort of the attempt, and a craft needs practice.
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| This was what I was working with |
These pants are a comfy flannel pair. Not new, so the fabric is somewhat worn. If you have sewn and mended, you know that makes repairing them questionable. Oh, sure you can sew the seam again, but how long will that last? Is it worth the effort? Raine agreed to let me try out the visible mending. I did not have more of this flannel, but the book I was reading was very much about using denim for the hand stitching, and I had some old jeans. I made a large patch, which I put on the inside of the tear so it wouldn't look like a big sign on the front of the pants. That's just not a good look.
I used a sharp embroidery needle, and a fairly small type of embroidery thread. A thimble and a pair of pliers were both very useful as well. To save my hands, I used the thimble to push the needle and the pliers to pull it. I could take several stitches at a time that way. I used a light blue, a cream and a rust colored thread for the rows of stitches. I didn't worry about them being straight or perfect. I just wanted to get them done, really. It probably took me about 5 hours to get to the point where I had Raine try the pants on to see how they looked and felt. They were not perfect, and I took a couple more hours to stitch up some edits and finish up.
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| This is the pants with the mend |
The shape of the patch was really pretty visible when she wore it in the front, but when she turned the pants around, the effect was much less visible. The denim was just too heavy with the flannel, and next time, I will do a better job of picking a patch fabric. I hope. Since the pants are elastic waisted, and the pockets are cargo pockets, the pants will do OK when she wears them "backwards." So, they are mended to usefulness again. That is a success, even though it is not a perfect success. Not bad for a first try, I think.
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| The mending stitches are visible here |
So here are some take-aways from this experience. The multiple rows of stitching helped incorporate the two fabrics, even though it was not perfect because of the weight difference between them. I also think that the stitching will help spread the stresses of wear across a larger area of the fabric to help the more worn areas last longer than they would if I had just resewn the seam that tore. Finally, while this example of visible mending is certainly not art, I do think the lines of stitching create interest. They aren't super obvious, and I wasn't trying to make them that way, but there is movement there that perhaps helps the patch blend in with this flannel fabric, which has a lot going on.
I am still thinking about the time it takes to sew this by hand VS sewing on the machine. I'm not saying I don't like it, but it is something for me to think about...
