Soft Pins x Shop Rat

16 of my favorite mending pins of the week in partnership with Shop Rat’s “Repair Month” series.

Hello Soft Crafters!

Continuing to send love to all those impacted by the ongoing wildfires in California. I’m encouraging you to continue donating to GoFundMe’s, the CA Fire Foundation, send clothes, truly anything you can do helps.

This week’s Soft Pins are in partnership with fellow Substacker Emilia Petrarca from Shop Rat and her January “Repair Month” series.

Mending is truly one of my favorite things to watch people do, there’s so many layers to why I love it. Theres no one right way to mend things, that’s what makes it so accessible, it’s just a bit of an intimidating process to start. There are two main styles that stick out to me: seamless and visible. Seamless is when you are mending the piece to try and replicate its original form, no frills. Visible is when you use a contrasting color or material to make the mend, it becomes a decorative part of the piece. These pins are mostly going to be surrounding textile mending, charts, and inspiration for ways to creatively mend. I’ve got a couple questions from Shop Rat readers that I will answer as well, to the best of my abilities 🥴.

Questions from Shop Rat readers:

1. Readers would love to be able to do some mending themselves. Any advice for when it’s the right scenario to patch something vs. having it mended professionally?

I think it’s always best to mend yourself! Truly no hole in a garment is too big. I’ve attached a variety of videos on different methods people use for different sized mends. If you want the mend to be seamless (and are a mending novice), I would recommend taking it to a textile specific tailor. Alter Knit is a service that you can send your damaged textile and they have a variety of services to save it such as: moth holes, cleaning, reweaving, de-pilling, and much more.

2. Are some sweaters/holes too difficult to repair to be worth it? Does it depend on where they are?

There’s a way to repair anything! For big holes, I see a lot of people use fabric patches ( see pin 6 for examples ). Obviously If the piece is more hole than garment, I would maybe consider abandoning the mend and using the remaining pieces to mend other knits!

3. Can crochet items be mended?

Yes….. I have yet to actually try and mend crochet, but I have seen a few videos floating around Pinterest. It seems like a much more involved process.

4. Any advice for sweater care, like how to un-shrink one, how to wash your knits, how to freshen them up, etc.?

Get a fabric shaver!!!!! Thats my secret weapon to keeping my knits looking fresh. For washing, I recommend filling the a tub with luke warm water and your preferred washing liquid, just fill it so the whole piece is submerged. Never hang your knits… unless you want stretched out shoulders. To un-shrink knitwear, you can soak it in a solution of warm water and fabric softener, hair conditioner, or baby shampoo, soak for 20 min -24 hrs and then gently stretch it back into shape.

Enjoy the pins :)

1. 

   https://pin.it/6GoIFxITy

2. 

   https://pin.it/6tUuIFKpj

3. 

   https://pin.it/4D0RKA0HC

4. 

   https://pin.it/6tnDnSSQ7

5. 

   https://pin.it/4wRA62kyI

6. 

   https://pin.it/2HLzX2Dkv

7. 

   https://pin.it/7vmkJUCKk

8. 

   https://pin.it/4Kc41jKX5

9. 

   https://pin.it/4CNC3cIDs

10. 

    https://pin.it/5jQubFozN

11. 

    https://pin.it/pFXP2Ectf ( video )

12. 

    https://pin.it/72X37r6Oh ( video )

13. 

    https://pin.it/3PdIHFG1E ( video )

14. 

    https://pin.it/5GstFfVqY ( video )

15. 

    https://pin.it/3TjWNZS7j

16. 

    https://pin.it/4dvgS5Z7o ( video )

    Xx ella