Checking your work and re-doing what you can see
Okay. Last time you did the mend, start to finish. Real garment, real repair, done. Today's lesson is short and it's the one people want to skip. We're checking your work. And re-doing the parts you can see are wrong.
And here's why this matters: a mend that's a little bit wrong doesn't get better sitting in the drawer. It gets worn. And then washed. And then it's a mend that's a little bit wrong forever, on a piece of clothing somebody actually uses. Twenty minutes now saves you from that.
Look at it in good light
Not the light over your sewing spot. Take the garment somewhere bright — a window in the daytime is best, up here we get that hard clear light most of the year and it shows you everything, which is exactly what you want right now.
Turn it right-side out if you were working from the inside. Lay it flat. And really look at:
- Is the line straight? Not straight like a ruler necessarily, but straight the way the original seam or hem was straight. Your eye knows the difference even if you can't explain it yet.
- Are your stitches even? Some variation is normal, especially early on. But if half your stitches are a quarter inch and half are an eighth inch, that's going to pull the fabric funny.
- Does the patch or repair sit flat, or is there a pucker, a pull, a spot where the fabric's bunched up because your thread was pulled too tight?
- Is the color right in this light, not the store light, not your lamp light. Sometimes a thread that looked perfect at the shop reads a shade off once it's actually on the garment.
The one-thread-width test
Here's a standard I hold myself to and I'll ask you to try it too, at least once. Run your finger along the line of your repair. Not looking. Just feeling. Does it feel even the whole way, or is there a spot where you can feel the stitches change?
I redid an entire hem once — William's pants, actually, no wait, it was my own skirt — because it was crooked by one thread-width. One. William looked right at it and said, "I can't see it." I could see it. I could see it every single time I looked at that skirt. So I picked out the whole hem, forty-some stitches, and I redid it. It took longer to fix than it did to sew in the first place, because un-picking is slower than sewing, always. But I wore that skirt for years and it never once bothered me, and that's the whole point.
You don't have to be that particular. Truly, you don't — that's a personal standard, not a rule of mending, and I'll own that it's a little much. But if something bothers your eye every time you look at it, that's information. Fix it now while you still remember exactly how you got here.
How to re-do a section without starting over
You do not need to pick out the whole repair most of the time. Just the bad stretch.
- Find where the trouble starts and ends. Usually it's obvious — a pucker, a loose loop, a spot where your tension changed.
- Snip the thread cleanly a few stitches past the trouble on each side, and pick those stitches out with your needle tip or a seam ripper if you've got one.
- Leave enough of a tail on the good stitches on either side to knot into.
- Re-pin that section. Yes, pin it again, even though you already sewed it once. Pin it, look at it, THEN sew it. That rule doesn't stop applying just because you're on your second pass.
- Sew the section, tying off into the old stitching on each end so there's no visible seam in your seam, if that makes sense.
What you don't need to fix
Not every little thing. If the stitches are even but you can tell it's hand-sewn up close — that's not a flaw, that's what hand-mending looks like. We talked about this with the visible patch: a mend doesn't have to hide to be good. It has to hold, and it has to not bother you every time you look at it. Those are two different standards and it's worth knowing which one you're actually failing.
If it holds, and it lies flat, and it doesn't catch your eye when you look at it in good light — you're done. Truly done. Not "good enough for now" done. Just done.
A word on the wash
Before you call it finished-finished, if you can, wash the garment once before you decide the mend passed. Water and the dryer will find weak spots a visual check won't. I've had repairs look perfect dry and pull a little loose after one wash because I didn't knot off quite firmly enough. Better to know that now than three wears in.
Before next time
Look over your real repair one more time in daylight, and if there's a spot that bothers you, pick it out and redo just that section. Bring the finished piece next time — we're moving into keeping your mending kit stocked so you're ready for the next thing before it becomes an emergency. 🌷
- V