How to Repair Vintage Clothes
Reusing vintage clothes has always been in style. Vintage clothing is an inexpensive way to express one’s personal taste and style. However, vintage clothing can have rips and tears that need repair before you can wear the clothes with confidence. It is easy to repair vintage clothing yourself.
What You Will Need
- Various-sized needles
- Thread matching the color of the fabric or the original thread
- Push pins
- Sewing scissors
- Thimble
- Iron-on reinforcement ribbon -- looks like a dryer sheet in ribbon form
- Steam iron
- Attach your thread through the needle, doubling it over and tying the ends of the thread together in a triple knot. Use the smallest needle necessary to minimize tearing the fabric. Some materials, such as denim and leather, will require a bigger, stronger needle.
- Pin the material together along the rip or tear.
- Iron on the reinforcement ribbon if the material is too fragile or too badly frayed to hold thread. Follow the iron temperature setting for the fabric.
- Sew the rip closed, trying to stay along any hem lines or as close to the original lines of the material as possible. Use small, straight stitches and take your time to get the stitches as close together as possible.
- Use the thimble to push the needle through if the material is dense or tough, such as leather or denim.
- Sew a knot by putting the needle through the line of thread that has already been sewn, leave a loop, and put the needle through the loop to tie a knot. Repeat to tie a double knot.
- Cut the thread loose with the scissors.