Monday's Mending Pile

Today is World Environment Day and we're all supposed to get outside and connect with nature. I rather be sewing. I will make some time to walk this evening. That's about as far as I plan to go since the cankerworms are creeping me out and I'm not a huge fan of the heat. I'm just waiting for it to cool off before I venture out into the great outdoors.   

Instead, I thought I should mark this day by getting to work on the over flowing mending pile. It felt like a marathon mending day. Maybe because I typically try to avoid mending whenever possible. Needless to say I'm pretty happy I've got these done and out of the mending pile. And I feel that I did my small part to help the environment.  

First up was an easy alteration to one of Mama R. This dress made it to the mending pile because she wanted the sleeves shortened. It was an easy fit, shortened by one and a half inches, serged and top-stitched with an inch hem.  

These armhole tears need a little more effort. Yes, both armholes required some tender lovin' care.  

First I had to treat the tears with Fray Check™ and then went off to find something to patch up the tears.  

The patches that I had in my sewing basket were too thick to use on this light-weight cotton as well as the area of the tear. Instead I decided to use some pieces of interfacing. I patched up the reverse sides as well and it gave the area the stability that I was hoping for and it looks good from the right side of the fabric. This should buy me some time until I can get another replacement housedress made for Mama R.   

And can you guess what that is in the upper right hand corner of the picture? If you guessed a darning egg, you're correct! I received this lovely item as a gift from one of my former co-workers. First time I've used it. I typically use an old lightbulb. Check me out, being all environmental and re-using household items for mending. Oh yeah, I didn't use the old lightbulb this time.  

Instead, I used the darning egg to repair this massive hole in one of my wool socks. And it worked quite well. I didn't want to use the polyester or silk thread in my stash for this repair and opted for black embroidery thread. 

So am I ready to get rid of those old light bulbs from my sewing basket? No, even though I love the darning egg. It is perfect for mending socks but I will keep the old light bulbs for when I need to repair and mend nylons and pantyhose. Wow, did I just date myself there?  

Well, that's all in mending news. Happy World Environment Day everyone!