Repair Pair

 When the friend very generously brought the inherited sewing stuff a few years ago (thanks again!), it included a lot of clothing that had probably been purchased to be used for craft purposes.  A lot of it was still fine--I kept a few pieces, let my friends pick out things they liked, and donated the rest.  A lot if it, though, had also been cut into.  Again, I kept a few pieces to use as doll cloth and let the friends take any they wanted, then put the scraps aside for years before deciding what to do with them.

A lot ended up in the scrap-filled floor pillow, but I realized a few pieces actually could be repaired.

The first piece I worked on was a souvenir hoodie from The Juan Valdez Café.  I'll admit, when I first went through all of the stuff in 2019, I was honestly upset that this hoodie had been cut into, because the fabric was so nice and heavy.  When I looked at it again a few months ago, I realized that it had only been cut apart at the side/arm seams and could be repaired.  (The ribbing had also been removed from the bottom, but I had set that aside as "potentially useful stuff" and knew exactly where it was.)

However.

Being a piece of souvenir memorabilia, it was...emblazoned.

Now.  I watched a lot of TV as a kid and therefore was very exposed to the Columbian Coffee mascot Juan Valdez and his burro Conchita, so I know that's what this acid green pile of pseudopods is supposed to be.  Doesn't mean I was happy about it.

This wasn't really helped by the fact that I don't drink coffee, although there was a lot more branding on the hoodie than just this, but it's a bit more...subtle.

I thought about covering it up with an appliqué, or maybe a lot of appliqués, but that didn't seem right in relationship to the overall style of the hoodie.

I wondered if I could maybe possibly pick out the embroidery stitching--I figured No, but wanted to try anyway.

Yeah, I only got this far before: hole.

I considered picking the embroidery stitching out the rest of the way, so that whatever I ended up sewing over the area wouldn't have the super dense stitching under it.  But.  It was really hard to pick out even this much. Wouldn't it be easier to just cut it out completely...

Oh.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Freehand doodle with tailor's chalk

and now I can check "reverse appliqué" off of the Middle Age Sewing Blogger bingo card

I might do more reverse applique, because it is neat. But. We all know I'm not going to do that particular kind of name-brand reverse applique that involves hand-stitching around the motifs, because.  Y'know.  Hand stitching.

So I zigzagged over the chalk lines and carefully cut away the insides.

As I worked more with the shirt, I discovered a few holes I hadn't noticed before.  Not all of these appliques are necessarily compensating for the holes--my general approach to hiding holes (or stains) in clothes with decorations is to make sure I cover the holes, yes, but also to add other design elements to help balance everything.

So! After finishing the appliqués, I sewed the side seams and arm seams back together.  I probably should have taken off and re-sewn the cuff ribbing, but I just sewed as close as possible to the cuff seams.  No-one's going to be looking that closely at my wrists.

The other piece of clothing that looked repairable was a broomstick skirt that needed new elastic (the original had been completely removed, probably deteriorating years ago) and also had a noticeable hole near the front center hem.

I pressed the torn edges flat, trimmed the stray threads, then fused a scrap of interfacing to the back

Then zigzagged over the edges and through the interfacing.

The print is busy enough to obscure the evidence.

Here's the repair compared to the same print elements--a bit more of the fabric was missing than I realized, but, again, there's so much print and so much fabric that it shouldn't be visible in normal wear.

(when I hung up the skirt to take "finished" pictures, I discovered another, much smaller hole, which I repaired the same way)

So here's the whole skirt, with the larger repaired area near the lower center front

See it?

How 'bout now?

The interfacing should soften even more after being washed...if the whole skirt can survive being washed, that is.  Both the shirt and skirt have been washed and are in the dryer now, so I'll find out soon.

And, yeah, I do want to try wearing these pieces together, with chunky-soled Doc Martens, in the 1990s style I was too uptight to wear back in the 1990s.