Repairing a hole in my joggers with a mini darning loom
Like most folks I'm a creature of habit, and like keeping my comfortable clothes for as long as possible. I was deeply frustrated to have ripped beside the pocket of my favourite joggers; the good news I have plenty of darning supplies!
Supply List:
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The Process
I started by placing the wooden disk of the mini loom on the inside of the trousers under the hole, being mindful to keep the pocket out of the way. You can see through the hole more clearly now theres a wooden backing under it.
I figured out I would only need to make the mend about an inch in size, so would probably need only 5 of the hooks, and turned those 5 hooks to face the centre with the others facing away.
Working from right to left (because I am right handed; you could do this left to right if that's more comfortable) I stitched through the trousers at the bottom of my mend, looped around a hook at the top, and back through the trousers at the bottom; leaving the start and end of the thread free (to tidy at the end). Making sure to make my mend taller & wider than the initial rip.
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I cut myself a new piece of thread before working horizontally. I made one small stitch on the right hand side before weaving my needle in and out of the vertical loops. With the mini darning loom, the hooks turn, lifting up alternate threads to make weaving your needle through easier. Once I pulled my needle through I made another small stitch on the left hand side, before making a new row; and doing the same left to right.
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Once I had repeated this until I could only just fit my needle through under the hooks, I turned all the hooks to face upwards, removed the elastic band around the darning loom, and carefully removed the loom from my stitching.
This left one row of tiny loops at the top of the darn. For the final row of horizontal stitching, I weaved my needle through, stitching through the black jogging fabric with each stitch.
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Once I finished the darning, I turned the jogger inside out to tidy the thread tails. Once inside out, I pulled the tail ends through to the 'inside' of the trouser leg. Then I used a latch hook needle to weave the thread ends back through the stitching.
Top tip: If your thread tail is short, weave the body of the needle first, then put the thread in the catch to pull it through
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FAQ's
Q: Could you do this mend without the darning loom?
A: Yes, instead of making a loop at the verticals, I would just stitch through the fabric before changing direction (as in the horizontals)
Q: Why choose Laine Saint-Pierre thread for this mend instead of Scanfil or another brand?
A: Both Laine Saint-Pierre and Scanfil are wool/ polyamide blends, so would be good choices for darning. LSP thread is a 4 stranded thread, where as Scanfil is single ply; so LSP can be split whereas Scanfil thread can't. This can make LSP harder to weave through, as the strands can separate, however I particularly liked this colour as it's used elsewhere in the joggers design.
Q: Should I use this darning method on stretchy fabric?
A: Strictly speaking, no. This type of woven darn does not have the stretch required on stretchy fabric. These joggers are a 77% Cotton, 23% Polyester blend and have almost no stretch.
