Hi again :-)

I feel like I haven't done a how-to for awhile so this time, a how-to for this new mending tool called a "Stitch Dome".

You can use these directions for woven mends with darning mushrooms and eggs, it's the same steps.

Maybe its the weather? I am back to mending and sewing like staying warm depended on it!

Here is the finished mend on my old blue jeans so you can see where this blog is going.

Below is a photo of the Stitch Dome tool.

I like this mending tool for how easy it was to get the fabric stretched onto it. It's a metal disc with a stretchy wide rubber band. The width of the band holds the cloth and dome in place really well.

Here is how to use it to make a woven mend:

Draw straight lines around your mend area. Remember to make it large enough that the fabric you will take you stitches in is still stong enough to hold the stitching. I am mending over an area where the jean fabric is becoming very fuzzy - there is no need to wait for an actual hole!

Ha! I just read package in the photo! It says this tool is for embroidery and applique! That's funny, I just looked at the tool and thought "mending" and never read the print I guess.

Bonus!  It's a multi purpose tool :-D

 (I am using two strands of Olympus 20 meter skeins sashiko thread for this mend.)

You can make tidy side by side stitches until the area is covered or you can leave gaps between the lines of thread to fill in with a second colour later.

This set of threads are called the warp threads. They will be the foundation of the weaving.

(I filled the area in with 2 strands each of three colours of Olympus 20 meter skeins sashiko thread)

Next you will start the weaving.

Push your needle through the denim from a few inches away, coming out at the the corner of the lines you drew around your mend area.

Draw the needle through leaving a few inches of thread inside the fabric. (You can use a knot if you want.)

Note: For every pass be careful to poke your needle through on that drawn line.

Next weave your needle over and under every thread (or in this case every pair of threads).

Don't worry that it looks messy, there is a fix for that :-)

Possibly I should have said "there is a tool for that" :-D.

This is a weft comb. You can find it in Mending & Stitching Tools on this website. There are many types of these and even a hair comb can work, but this one is beautiful and well made.

I do love a tool that I can enjoy just as a thing in itself!

It is laser engraved bamboo with rounded metal teeth. They did not easily poke into the threads so I didn't need to be careful about the spacing, I just put it above the weft thread and pulled. This straightens and packs your weft threads.

You decide how tightly you want these packed as you build the woven mend by looking at your yarn and deciding what seems best for your purpose.

There are two things to pay attention to at this point.

• Begin with your needle on the line you drew every time.
• Take a stitch through the fabric at the end of each weft line each time so that the side of the weaving will be connected to the fabric.

As you got back and forth how you do this will alternate as follows:

On one side, at the end of the warp thread the weft (crossing) thread is over the top of the last weft (up and down) thread, so in this case poke your needle through the fabric and come up just on the other side of that last warp thread.

On the left side in the photo below you can see this. The weft (crossing) threads are going over the warp threads. I have put my needle through the cloth and come up in the space between the warps before the blue threads, and then continued to weave to the other side. 

When you reach the other side lay your needle down and use the comb to pack this line of thread tidily against the last one.

Since the weft (crossing) ended UNDER the last warp on the right side  you need a slightly different technique. In the photo above you can see I did a rather clumsy turnaround! In the next photo you can see I left the stitch and it shows up. I mean...this is old mended jeans, so it didn't really matter to me, but below is how to make that turn in a better way.

When your weaving ends under the last warp, you want to take that stitch through the fabric under the second warp thread (see the photo). You can also see in the previous wefts how this keeps the edge tidy while still attaching it to the fabric.

 I'm happy with this patch and I think it took about an hour to do. I threw the jeans in the washer and drier and took the next photo after that so you could see how threads fibres have swollen and then tightened again causing them to be smoother and to cozy up to each other and to the denim.

How the Olympus sashiko 20 meter skeins thread does this when washed is why I continue to use it more than any other thread for both sashiko and mending. The more it is washed the more it settles into the cloth, until over time it will appear almost part of the background cloth.

One last photo, because I know you are wondering :-D

Below is the back of the same weave.

I didn't cut or knot the thread tails because I know once it is washed this Olympus sashiko thread tends to stay in place very well without. Now that it has been washed I will clip the longer ones to an inch or so just to tidy up.  If you feel concerned about the thread coming out you can iron a featherweight or lightweight fusible interfacing over the whole patch on the inside, effectively 'gluing then down.

Although there is no actual hole in these jeans you can see from the soft fuzzing of the denim there will be very soon.

And now it won't matter! :-D

 I hope you enjoy your own mending!

Kind regards,

Susan