“You can sew? “

“Oh…”

“Can you fix my backpack? The strap broke. “

“Can you replace my zipper in my coat?”

“Can you patch my knees in my jeans?”

I’m sure you’ve been asked these types of things a time or two if you are good with a sewing machine.

While preparing for the big quilt give-away, I ripped my coat while carrying an artificial Christmas tree upstairs in the church building. I was trying to remove the extra Christmas stuff before we could bring down all the quilts.

EEK! I wear this jacket/coat a lot. All the time in fact. It is warm enough for pretty much whenever I need a coat/jacket. If it is really cold outside, I can add more clothes underneath it and it works.

So what can I do?

At first I thought of just trying to stitch it closed with navy thread. I knew, however, that I could never get it to look “right”.

Then, I thought about applique. Why not?

I didn’t really want to go buy another coat - If I did head to the used clothing store I’m sure I’d rather look for second-hand duvet covers and sheets and not coats for myself! That’d be way more fun! I know I’m weak in this area - and I’m really trying to whittle down my stash at least until all my second hand fabrics can fit one two bookcases and not take over a room! (one of the reasons for the upcycled blues series!)

So, this is what I did.

I decided to applique a patch over the spot. But then just ONE applique might look strange, so I thought I needed to put 2 more patches on the coat. Then, why stop at 3? Why not 5?

So that’s what I did. I put two on the one sleeve where I had the problem, one on the other sleeve and then one on each side of the front of the coat.

I cut out squares or rectangles with my rotary cutter and then hand sewed them on with the same stitch I would bind a quilt - or back when I sewed clothing, hand sew the back side of a waistband on.

Then, because my coat was dirty, I washed it. Now it is drying.

It came through the laundry just fine. I’m happy. My coat is great now and I fixed it without any additional cost to me - and I don’t have to go shopping for another coat! Win. Win.

Ah yes. I’ve been listening and watching videos about “fast fashion” and the throw away culture as well. While I’ve been one who mostly has “fixed” clothing, I’ve not really fixed a coat before. - at least not like this (I have worked on zippers though).

I recently had to change a zipper out in a coat of my husband’s. Someone had given him the coat but the zipper was broken when he got it. He really like the coat otherwise - it was in brand new conditoin. I went to my hand dandy wholesale findings store where I buy batting that is about 1/4 mile from our house and bought a nice zipper for under a dollar and replaced it. It was a coat zipper and I had to take quite a bit of the front apart - so it took over an hour. By comparison this was literally “a piece of cake”.

And now you know one of the things I’ve been up to lately!

Have a great day! wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!