Mending a towel

Sewing is an imminently practical art form. It allows you to fix what you have and make what you want to your specifications. This is the first of two posts about what you can do with a towel that is starting to show wear. These projects are both simple, perfect if you are just starting to sew with a machine. And most of us will have material to work with. 

Towels often wear out first around the edges. Often when this happens, the rest of the towel is still in pretty good condition. You can fix the towel fairly quickly and easily.

This is the beach towel I mended today. You can sees strings hanging off and the frayed edges.

 

I started this project by using a seam ripper to take out the edging that was still intact. I then trimmed off the fraying part with a rotary cutter. You could use scissors as well. 

Then I took the towel to my sewing machine and sewed a zig zag stitch up both sides of the towel, backstitching at the ends so the stitching does not unravel.  This towel didn't have any holes in them, but on other towels I just worked a zig zag stich back and forth over the hole to patch it up. 

I have done this with several towels in the last couple years. There will be some fraying at the edges until it reaches the zig zag stitch, but the stitch will prevent it from fraying more and will allow you to use the towel for a few more years. 

Darning and my darning egg

When I started my quest to save fabric I started with darning. And it's a good place for you to start if you are looking to mend clothing and linens rather than throwing them away.  In my view, fixing things is a forgotten skill in our age. 

You can darn by hand or darn by machine. Darning by hand requires very little equipment and minimal skills. You need embroidery floss, an embroidery needle, scissors and a darning egg, which will help you keep the shape of the item and keep you from catching the other side of the fabric if you are mending something tubular like a sock or the knee of kid pants. 

Because I try to use what is around, my darning egg is not one specifically designed for sewing.  My darning egg is a large green plastic Easter egg that I picked up at a junk swap at my workplace. 

You can make your darning more or less noticeable depending on whether you want visible mending or invisible mending. 

Here is one example of a sock I darned by hand using a contrasting embroidery floss.  

Here is an example of towel I mended using a sewing machine. This is less noticeable and happily I extended the life of this towel by 18 months and counting. 

I will share more information in an upcoming post on how to utilize these techniques, but I want you to first know that we can all fix things rather than throwing them away.