Mending things that are not clothes

I have a secret.

Ok, I’m terrible at keeping secrets, so I’ll tell you…I love mending.

It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, my idea of darning was saying, “Darn” loudly as I regretfully tossed my (hand knit! what the hell was I thinking?!) socks in the trash. But I’ve since fallen in love with the process of making textiles whole again when they get sad. And there’s some delightful threads (ha, I’m hilarious) here on mending clothes. I didn’t, however, see any on mending other items. So here’s a thread. Stitch up some lovely mends, friends, and show them off.

Here’s one I was working on today. It’s a quilt—a very cheap one that I bought probably 20 years ago. I’ve become determined to keep it warming the bodies of people i love and providing the more-than-occasional place for the cat to nap, all while getting better and more beautiful with many mends.

Many. Today I mended three places and counted at least 30 more still to go.

For those who need a little nudge, and maybe some instructions, there’s several nifty little Badge Bits dedicated to mending non-clothing items!

Ooh, how do you do a houndstooth with the Speedweve?  Or is it embroidered on top of a flat weave?

I have a Speedweve but I haven't played with it yet.

Morfydd St. Clair wrote:Ooh, how do you do a houndstooth with the Speedweve?  Or is it embroidered on top of a flat weave?

I have a Speedweve but I haven't played with it yet.

It was the happiest accident! Start your warp with color A, threading a hook and then skipping a hook. Go back with color B, filling in the ones you skipped. (Faster to warp it this way when you’re using multiple colors and uses less thread.) Then weave two rows of each color as weft; I used two needles to minimize the number of times I had to thread a needle. Magic!

Best tip I have for these delightful little looms is to send your needle though the warp shed backward, eye first. This keeps the point from catching on the warp threads.

I found this video really helpful in getting started:

Wonderful, thank you!

This seems like the right place for this little foray into mending - definitely a "not clothes" mending project.

One of our cotton bathroom rugs (probably from Walmart or Target or some other price-conscious outlet) had begun to fray badly on the end.  This is because:  the warps were simply cut (but not worked in); after which, the end was turned under and sewn, with a single run of lock stitch.  Not so robust, even if these rugs only get shaken out and washed (air dried), but never vacuumed with the carpet attachment.

So, I worked the (doubled) warp strands back in, under 5 weft shots.  I pulled the half of them that would have been on the "right" or show side to the back.  I plan to turn the end and stitch it down to contain the warp ends.

As you can probably see, the ends were too short to thread before passing the yarn needle under the wefts, so I had to fish the needle part way through, then thread the warps through the eye.  I used a bared "twistie" wire (bread bag twist) to make a needle threader to get the warp yarns through the eye (barely discernible in a couple of the pics).  For those warps which were on the right side, I had to repeat the process of post-threading the needle to pull them through to the back.

It's not yet turned and stitched, and I may need to do something with the selvedge warps, but I did mock up the finished product by "pinning" it with the yarn needle as a quick test, and I think I can manage the loose ends.  But that will need to wait for another day, since it's half past 11 and I spent a good bit of the day cleaning snow off roofs, some am fairly well tuckered out.  I think it's OK to use in the AM.

I'm not a fiber arts guy, per se, but needs must!

Nicely done, Kevin!

Carla Burke wrote:Nicely done, Kevin!

Thanks for your vote of confidence!

If nothing else, it did provide a good break between snow scooping, roof shoveling and ice dam chipping spells on Saturday (a change is as good as a rest), and kept me sociably awake yesterday evening after a long day of physical labor.

I did try a couple of other approaches to this mending job, including half-hitching each pair of warp strands to its neighboring strands (using a latch hook - not very secure, and left a fringe) in sequence, and square knotting adjacent warp strands together to secure the weft (which would have left a fringe - also using the latch hook, because the strands were too short to use fingers), but I eventually settled on this approach.  I think it will be more secure in the long run, a bit tidier and more workman like, and there was enough looseness in the weave to facilitate it.

I don't know if I'll try to use my old Standard Rotary sewing machine (usually reserved for abusive jobs like mending backpacking tents, backpacks and work pants), or if I'll try to use a Speedy Stitcher (a lock stitch sewing awl - usually used for mending boots, heavy tarps or tents, and the like) when I turn the edge.  Double needle by hand is another possibility, since the pack of Boye yarn needles I had laying around have a pair of each size of needle.  I don't think I have a ball ended needle for either the sewing machine or the Speedy Stitchers (I have a dueling brace, one bought new, the other found cheaply at a used tool store).  So, maybe the double needle technique will be best.

Whichever method I choose, I'll post a follow-up.  Not that what I do is the very paragon of virtue (as I said, I'm not a fiber arts guy), but it may  - at the very least - give someone else an idea of what they don't wish to do!

I also wanted to thank the OP for the intro to a Speedweve mending loom.  I'd had no prior acquaintance.  Where was one of these things when I was a kid and my mother was teaching me to mend and darn?  I mostly had a burned out light bulb, over which to work.  Just having the rubber band clamping do-hickey to keep the fabric taut and flat would have been a godsend!

Now, the engineer in me is contemplating how to make a version a bit more like a rigid heddle loom, which would more easily allow warp manipulation for weaves other than straight tabby weaves.  Maybe two or more lengths of hooks?  I guess there are always lease sticks.  Maybe there's a version of Matteo Salusso's tubular rigid heddle which would work, or one of the sort having a square cross-section bar heddle and kerfed slots for the warps on alternating diagonals of the section.  I don't recall the name of the second sort (old age creeping up?), but rotating the heddle back and forth by 90 degrees alternately raises and lowers the warps to for sheds.

On edit: maybe this is just a "heddle bar".  A good write-up on making a wooden one can be found here:
https://blog.vintagetoolpatch.com/2025/05/25/loom-heddle.html

Whether that makes any sense for a darning loom, that's another question entirely!

Another rabbit hole, down which to fall!

Interesting ideas! I think the rotating needle bar would need to be awfully small, which in turn (heehee) could make it pretty delicate and prone to breakage. But having & using a speed loom, I can attest, on large projects, a tiny needle *could* make the job much easier. On small projects however, I think it would be too fiddly for me to mess with.

Carla Burke wrote:Interesting ideas! I think the rotating needle bar would need to be awfully small, which in turn (heehee) could make it pretty delicate and prone to breakage. But having & using a speed loom, I can attest, on large projects, a tiny needle *could* make the job much easier. On small projects however, I think it would be too fiddly for me to mess with.

Yes, I suspect that's true, but sometimes I can barely contain my impulse to needlessly complicate what is already a perfectly acceptable solution to a problem!  Given that most darning jobs are a couple of inches/few centimeters wide, the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze.  Picking through the warp threads with a darning needle shuttle is simple enough, in this case.

I presently need to mend the elbow of a shirt (well, more jobs that that are in the queue, but it needs urgent attention - a stitch in time, etc.).  I may darn it, or I may try to do something more akin to invisible mending (but visible, because I don't have a swatch to use to effect the repair, and the shirt is also showing significant wear elsewhere, so such fanciness as invisible mending is unwarranted, but it still might be a good test bed on which to hone my skills - not much downside risk attends such a venture).  I'll probably tackle this before any Speedweve style darning loom would arrive in my edge-of-nowhere location, but I think I'll still order one to add to the quiver.

To that end, does anyone have a recommendation on the minimum or maximum number of hooks (i.e. widths) which are practical for general mending use?

Do these all generally have a similar gauge/spacing of hooks, irrespective of manufacturer?

Are the "extended play" obround platforms helpful/functional (e.g. does the elastic band - or twine, once the elastic perishes - secure the cloth well enough along the side of the oval)?  I can imagine that a long tear might be more easily mended with the long version.  I've seen that some of these kits offer both round and extended platforms, or a choice of either one, from new, and some makes offer the extended length platform as a separate item.

Similarly, I noticed that some of these have a "handle" which can socket into the back of the platform.  Has anyone found this to be useful, and under what circumstances?

Has anyone tried to make a DIY Speedweve (maybe using spare knitting machine hooks, or bending hooks out of high tensile fence wire, or whatever)?  I can imagine a couple of approaches to this which might be workable.

"Yes, I suspect that's true, but sometimes I can barely contain my impulse to needlessly complicate what is already a perfectly acceptable solution to a problem!  Given that most darning jobs are a couple of inches/few centimeters wide, the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze."
This got a good giggle out of me - reminds me very much of my son.

Mine (1 small 1a but larger) are pretty much identical to this one, and the hooks are essentially proportioned the same. I was at first a tad frustrated by not being able to get more size options, then in using them, realized they were fine as they were and more sizes would just be more fiddly, while not necessarily improving the results:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/397513023945

They came with rubber bands, but the frame just cut right through those, the first time I tried to use them. A few minutes with a metal file to smooth out the edges is very helpful. And I bought some appropriately sized, covered hair ties, for better protection of the fabric in repairing.

Carla Burke wrote:

Mine (1 small 1a but larger) are pretty much identical to this one, and the hooks are essentially proportioned the same. I was at first a tad frustrated by not being able to get more size options, then in using them, realized they were fine as they were and more sizes would just be more fiddly, while not necessarily improving the results:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/397513023945

They came with rubber bands, but the frame just cut right through those, the first time I tried to use them. A few minutes with a metal file to smooth out the edges is very helpful. And I bought some appropriately sized, covered hair ties, for better protection of the fabric in repairing.

Thanks for the recommendation/sanity check.  And for the reminder to check the edges of the stamping for burrs and flash.

Here's another of my mending projects: when I set it up this spring, I discovered that the screen on our screen house had two large-ish tears, the larger of the two big enough for a blue jay to come through, so not stopping mosquitos or black flies, for sure.  I'd saved the old screen, even though it was in rough shape; if nothing else, it had some zippers, but I am loathe to throw things away (much to my wife's chagrin!).  The old screen had one bought patch on it that I could remove (using a utility knife hook blade as a seam ripper, as one does!) and reuse on the new screen for mending the smaller rip, but the other larger tear needed something else.  I debated cutting a piece of the old screen as a patch, but decided to just try to close up the gash by stitching the edges together; if necessary, I can still cut a patch from the old screen.

Here are the photos.  Though I thought I had taken one of the smaller gash when patched, but I'll append one later, on edit.  No one will mistake my work for that of a cosmetic surgeon, that's for sure(!), but at least the bugs stay out (mostly - that's the most you can hope for, realistically).

Here's the small tear with the patch just basted in place, more or less.  This tear may have some material missing - perhaps someone was nibbling on this?  Whatever the case, there isn't enough mesh to actually close the gap, so a patch is necessary to prevent excessive bunching and puckering while keeping out the worst of the biting bugs (today, it was mostly mosquitos and deer flies, but I'm sure there must still be some black flies around, too).

Comforter covers take a lot of material to make, and get a lot of use at my house. They either wear at the top near our face, or further down near the feet. I added a full width patch in complimentary fabric to my queen-sized cover, and I've mended/patched/ replaced the underside of my son's favorite cover multiple times.

I also am often pressed into service mending tarps after windstorms. I save grommets with good fabric around them to stitch over damaged areas that need to be tied to. I've also patched rips. I would truly like fewer tarps on our property, but I'm not getting that wish anytime soon, so I at least try to keep them functional as long as possible.

Everything that's 'textile' I like to make it myself, so I like to mend it too (because I made it myself). But also if I didn't make it myself. And when at last it isn't 'mendable', it's still 'cloth' I can use in other projects.

I think I inherited this frugality with textiles from both my parents. My mother never threw away anything that was stil useable or wearable. She wasn't very good at hand crafts, but mending and darning she did. My grandmother (my father's mother) was a really good hand-crafter, always busy making something.

scrap piece with application on a domestic sewing machine

This reminds me... I have a large canvas tent that needs mending (it's served me well for 4 years). Last weekend I purchased a canvas drop-cloth. Now I just need to work up the courage to start stitching things together.

Anyhow: best of success to everyone's non-clothing mending projects...!

I used rivets to mend my dog leashes.  Puppies have very sharp shearing teeth.  He was a 70 pound baby dog.,,,

The hardest thing was finding a spurce for the kind of rivets I wanted.  Every harfware store I tried had a thing that goes in a rivet gun… and I can’t even explain what those looked like, but I was sure they wouldn’t do what I wanted.  I went to a local craft store, and among the leather working materials equipment and supplies, there they were.  I had to use an ice pick to melt holes in the nylon mesh.  

I think an awl and some tough twine would also have worked.  The kind of material that is often called sinew.  It comes waxed, is like really thick dental floss.  Likely made of the same kind of thing.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I used rivets to mend my dog leashes.  Puppies have very sharp shearing teeth.  He was a 70 pound baby dog.,,,

Why do puppies love chewing their leads??

This lead has survived three puppyhoods - our late border collie springer spaniel cross, Brittany spaniel/labrador cross and our current cavalier king Charles.

The latter chews through his stuffed toys until he reaches the stuffing and then pulls it all out.

He gets very impatient when I patch the toys and supervises me closely.