What do you think of this repair job?

BigBrother

Registered Guest
Our local seamstress is absolute dynamite with alterations, but I’m beginning to think she’s not the best at repairs. On the other hand, I really have no idea. I recently gave her a pair of my men’s 1930s summer weight slacks, they’re basically of a Palm Beach cloth-like material.

They had about an inch-long rip in one of the legs that came about from dancing. When I got them back from her, she had sewn a patch of fabric behind it and I was pretty disappointed as, at certain angles/lighting, you could see the patch. I thought she was just going to sew the rip shut, but she informed me that she had to do this otherwise the rip would just continue to grow. So here are two pictures showing the work. What do you think? Was this the way to do it?
 

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My opinion only... I'm not a repair expert by any means. But it's a subject I take great interest in.

It's true that when the threads are torn, they have to be reinforced, not just sewn shut. You have to replace the broken threads. This is the essence of darning.

IMO it's not necessarily true that it needed the extra patch behind the repair. Hard to know without seeing the original tear, but if there wasn't fabric missing, only torn, it didn't necessarily need a patch.

Patching is one solution, but not the only one. There are also ways of patching that are less obvious than this - eg the Tailors Patch - though that is normally for heavier weight wool fabrics.

Hard to know without seeing the tear, but I would probably have just darned rather than patched behind and then darned. This would definitely still be visible, but possibly less noticeable than this.

I wouldn't be happy with the double line of stitching around the patch.

The central part of this repair looks like machine darning, but appears to be in the wrong direction. Eg if the tear is vertical (meaning the horizontal weft threads are broken), the darning needs to be horizontal to replace the broken threads.

(If the tear is both warp and weft, the darning needs to go in both directions. )

It also depends how much strain this particular part of the garment will be under, and what kind of usage you need it to stand up too. Do you need to go dancing it in? If so this weak place will need considerable reinforcement, and the more strain it has to take, the more noticeable the repair is likely to be. Or do you plan to wear it very carefully, if so a lighter touch might have been enough.

All that said, invisible repair is a highly skilled and costly business. Even not-overly-noticeable repair, is a specific skill set - and something of a lost art. It's different from being a seamstress, and not necessarily something you should expect a seamstress to be good at, or even to understand the basic principles.

Repairing a seam that's come undone is very different from repairing damage to the fabric. I would take the former to a seamstress, but not the latter, unless I knew they had those skills.
 
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Thanks Sadie!

Another thought is that a hole or tear could be repaired by a patch OR by a darn, but not usually both as here. You can use a piece of gauze behind to reinforce a darn, but that would then be trimmed to the shape of the darn, not sewn around the edges.
 
Interesting stuff and make sense all around. This will be for active dancing for sure, and she did warn me it would just grow. Would you have this re-repaired? Is there a lot of damage/visible cruff that was created from this patch job?
 
Interesting stuff and make sense all around. This will be for active dancing for sure, and she did warn me it would just grow. Would you have this re-repaired? Is there a lot of damage/visible cruff that was created from this patch job?

Tricky question. Unpicking the stitches and repairing it again will create additional wear and tear on the weak area. It looks to be serviceable as it is, the only issue is that it's more visible than you'd like.

I guess it depends a) if you can live with it as it is, ie how much does it bother you b) do you have someone you can take it to for a better repair and c) do you want to spend the money for that.

If it's not a big deal to you as it is, I'd leave it, but know that in future I'd be looking for someone else for this kind of damage.

I also don't know how easy it is to find good repairers.
 
My seamstress has also done repairs similar to this...which she felt was the only way to go. I have to say I am generally disappointed with that kind of repair but as Ruth mentioned above it is likely difficult to get a seamstress who can do it without the backing tape.
 
I agree with the earlier posts, but first you need to know the difference between a rip and a tear.

A rip is an unstitched seam section. A tear is a hole in the fabric. The latter is much more difficult to repair inconspicuously.

This repair was going to be noticeable no matter how it was repaired.

Do the darning stitches go through the patch? If so, I would consider removing the stitches at the edges of the patch and trimming the patch close to the darning stitches. When repairing some holes, I would use a fusible for the patch.
 
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