DIY: Darning a Vintage Wool Tweed Cape
Sunday is for sourdough and sewing fun… I have a batch of sourdough english muffins and birote bread dough going to bake tomorrow, and knocked out a couple tiny mending projects before getting back into the Great Tweed Capelet Caper. I’m reweaving or darning the fabric to repair some damaged parts (including a sizeable moth hole in the front that had kept me from wearing it for awhile).
Hopefully this little example will help you figure out how to mend your own clothes and give them new life! I use this method to fix moth holes or worn spots and tears in sweaters, socks, skirts, gloves and hats, and any other knit garments.
You’ll need matching thread or darning yarn of a similar color and weight if you want to do an invisible repair. I was able to pick out enough thread from the seams working from gap made from a tear in the lining stitching. I guess that loose lining is another thing that I need to fix, but it is convenient at the moment to have easy access to the guts of the garment. You can open up a seam if you need to, preferable one that’s not too noticeable. Use a seam ripper to carefully unpick enough stitches to harvest some threads from the hem or another wide seam. Restitch it when you’re done.
Or, hop on the visible mending trend and pick a colorful contrasting color, or rainbow variegated thread.
The rewoven and darned repaired section is not a perfect match texturally to the original fabric, but much better than the exposed woven interfacing that was there before!
Now I’m fixing a loose buttonhole and a different loose button, and while I’m at it, retrofitting some actual hand pockets. The pockets before were mostly decorative, capable of warming maybe just my fingertips? The side without the buttonhole has room for a whole hand sized pocket, and we’ll see what happens with the other one, but even the one real pocket will be an improvement! I’m taking apart an old hoodie that I love but that’s just too tiny on me (thrifted long before either my gym heavy lifting days, or the Covid stress baking times, lol)… so I’m taking it apart and turning it into new stuff. Huzzah.
Don’t throw out your moth-damaged or otherwise holey clothes… repair them, darn it!