Visible Mending

Generally, whether repairing clothes or quilts for my customers, my goal is invisible mending.  But with visible mending being all the rage these days and I enjoy embroidery, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I've been looking at all sorts of mends that folks are posting on social media.  I've decided that what I like best are mends that neaten up the tears and holes.  And what I like even better are mends that make something artsy and fun out of the patches and mending stitches themselves.

I decided to try visible mending on my gorgeous indigo blouse that I've had for 30+ years.  I love this blouse!  But the fabric has been getting weaker and weaker and has sprouted some little holes.

I put a scraps of cotton on the inside, indigo or cream depending on the location.

    

And then I embroidered over and around the holes and worn seam lines.  I added extra rays of stitching on the white patch, to blend the mend (top center) into the design of the dyeing a bit more. 

   

Here are the mends along the left back shoulder, and also the collar fold line.  You can see that I did a little bit of this and a little bit of that, depending on the shape and location of the wear.

And here are mends to an elbow rip.  The white stitching follows the tie-dye pattern.  The blue stitching was placed along the rip to close it up.  You can also see that I turned the sleeve hems up once to put the ragged and stained fabric out of sight.

              

I haven't worn this blouse for quite a while, i.e. several years, while wondering how best to fix it.  I'm glad I waited until this visible mending Thing came along!  I really like how it came out, and I'm totally thrilled to be wearing this blouse again. 

By the way, the little polymer clay pin was made by my daughter when she was in preschool.  I decided that it looked cool on this blouse, and represents the full moon with a halo of light around it.  It's been pinned in this spot ever since.