Whittling away at the Mending Pile!

During MeMadeMay this year, one of my goals was to work on the pile of mending in my sewing room and decide whether to fix and wear or give away all the items languishing there. I got a few pieces done during May, and have been able to get a couple more back into the wardrobe this month. 

I made a quick repair of a red linen blouse -- the Ruffle Sleeve Top by In the Folds for Peppermint Magazine. This has been in the mending stack for a while, and yet the mending only took about 15 minutes. I had a small hole on the seam of the interior facing to stitch up, to start. And I had finished the edges of the facing by turning under and stitching, but with this very lightweight linen, I didn't like it -- it added bulk across the edge of the facing that could be seen as a line from the outside. 

So I made a line of straight stitch about 1/2" above the original edge, added a line of narrow zigzag just beside it, and trimmed off the original clunky hem with my pinking shears. I figure that one of those will keep it from fraying! And now it looks so much better that I've already worn it this week. 

The second project was another thing I've been putting off because it felt like so much work...but it really wasn't much! I made this rayon Burda in 2021 but after a few wears I felt that the elastic waist casing was starting to go.

It was still wearable but didn't feel too reliable. This pattern used the technique where you stitch together the seam allowances of the waist seam and use that for the casing, but with a lightweight rayon like this I find that unless you have a large seam allowance it starts to fray and pull out. So I trimmed the fraying edge, pressed the remaining seam allowance flat, and stitched a wide bias binding strip over the waistline seam. 

I then threaded elastic back in to the new casing and stitched the hole closed. Now it feels secure and sits nicely at the waist, and I won't have to worry about the elastic popping out anytime soon! 

I have a couple more blouse hems and sleeves to work on, as well as a few skirts. They are all minor fixes but are all necessary to make the items wearable again. I hope to keep working away at the pile and catch up through the summer. We'll see how it goes!