Skills for Mending Clothes and Projects to Try

Mending clothes is an important skill to have to make your clothes last longer. It doesn’t take a lot of techniques to be able to perform basic mending tasks, but this post will walk you through some things you need to know to mend clothes and some projects you can try.

How to Thread a Needle

The first thing you need to be able to do before you can do any mending by hand (which is what these projects focus on) is threading a needle.

It’s a really basic thing that a lot of people don’t know how to do easily, so if you’re at the very beginning of your journey with mending clothes, this is the place to start.

Just being able to thread a needle quickly and easily will boost your confidence for the projects to come.

How to Tie a Knot for Hand Sewing

Of course once you have the thread on the needle you want to keep it their while you are sewing, so the next step is how to tie a knot in thread to get ready for sewing.

This is the method I teach to kids and adults alike because I think it’s easier than tying a knot by hand, and it’s easier to get it close to the end of the thread so you don’t have a tail sticking out the back of your project.

Sew on a Button

One of the most common projects when it comes to mending clothes is sewing a button. It’s something we all need to do from time to time and I think everyone should know how to do it.

If you have kids make sure they know how to sew on a button, too. And if you don’t know how to do it either you can learn together.

Also check out my post about sewing a button on a coat making a shank-style button with thread if you have thick items with buttons that keep falling off.

Mend a Small Hole

If you have a little hole in your jeans where all the threads are still in tact, it’s easy to do a bit of weaving to close up and reinforce the hole.

Alternatively you can fix holes in jeans and other heavier weight fabrics (not T-shirts or thin fabrics) with a no-sew method using fusible tape and extra fabric on the back/inside of the garment. Because mending clothes isn’t always about sewing, and sometimes there’s a quicker and easier method.

Fix a Torn Seam

Another really common clothing issues that requires mending is having a torn seam. Torn seams can happen on just about any type of clothing, and it’s an easy fix.

You can sew a seam back together by hand but this is also a mending project you can do with a sewing machine if you have one (depending on the fabric of the garment in question).

Visible Mending with Embroidery

For small holes in T-shirts or anything else aside from heavy weight fabrics, using visible mending techniques is but fun and effective.

Here I used a bit of embroidery to cover up a small hole and made the fix a lot more fun with French knots and layered daisy stitches to make a multicolored flower.

Mending Clothes with Sashiko

For a bigger hole on jeans, shirts or anything else, reinforce with a patch at the back and stitch running stitches by hand across the front.

This is inspired by the Japanese mending method called sashiko, and it’s really easy to do. While I just show running stitch here you can make lots of intricate patterns that are a different way of visible mending that’s also helping to reinforce the fabric around the hole.

Reverse Applique Mending

You can also mend a hole like this by putting fabric behind the hole and sewing around the edges of the hole by hand.

This is known as reverse applique, and it can also be done for decorative purposes even when you don’t have a hole to cover.

This is also a fun way to add a bit of color to an old piece of clothing if you use contrasting fabric and brightly colored thread, but you can also make it blend in more if you like.

How to Fix a Frayed Buttonhole

We’ve done a lot of work on jeans in this mending clothes series, and here’s one more that’s sometimes necessary on jeans or other pants or shorts. Sometimes the threads around the buttonhole can get loose or frayed from long use of the button.

This is more annoying than anything another person will see, but it’s also an easy thing to fix so why not go ahead and reinforce the buttonhole? It will make you so much happier when you wear those pants to see them mended, I promise.

Darning a Sock

Storebought socks are relatively inexpensive, and they get a lot of wear. But it’s still annoying when you get a hole in the toe; you don’t want to just throw them out! Or at least I don’t.

When all my socks seemed to fail at the same time, I had a sock toe mending spree, and it’s quick, easy and super satisfying to fix those holes in the toes of socks and give your garments a little more life.

I hope these basics of mending clothing inspire you to keep some clothes out of the bin and in your rotation longer.