Mending travel pants

As usual, just as I was about to open the October meeting of the WES Group, I checked my phone for last minute apologies or messages, only to see, on the screen, a message from my friend Ken: I think we are close to "end of life treatment".

My heart almost stopped as I opened the message, to find it was accompanied by the photo on the left.  He was referring to his travel pants, which I have mended numerous times before!

End of life? The message took a few minutes off mine, but the trousers will continue for a while yet  if I have anything to do with it!

I picked them up last week after eating the very good Vegetable Bake with Sausages, that Ken had cooked (with many questions about temperature and timing). The next day I dug out some of the batik I have used before for the same purpose. Placing a large piece on the inside of the pants, I machined around the tear on the outside, then appliqué the piece down on the inside. The original orange cotton is too thin to patch the outside only.

I could then patch the outside with more of the batik fabric, matching the pattern to where I'd patched last time.

Unfortunately, there is wear and tear on other parts of the trousers as well, particularly the waist and the cuffs.

These took more thought, and a good deal of bias tape, which I happened to have in a reasonable colour match.

I added a bias tape edge to the cuffs, and triangles of batik to the seam, where the stitching was pulling apart and fraying.

The wear at the waist was a a bit more of a challenge, with three rows of elastic to contend with. However, the bias tape fitted neatly over each row of elastic, so I stitched it by hand over the front section of the waistband, which was the most worn. (top 2 sections on photo on left show before, bottom section shows fix).  Ken has suggested hanging the trousers on the wall as an exhibit. While I can go on adding batik patches to the whole of the original fabric until there is no more orange left, I admit the wear around the waist has me worried.

The current fix will suffice for a few more wears but I'm not sure how possible or effective it will be to cover the whole waistband should it continue to wear, which, of course, it will.

My granddaughters think this is a definite improvement on the original orange - but that I should teach Ken how to mend them himself!

I’m always up for a challenge, but that, I think, is beyond my skill level! 

Impossibilities? Certainly. Miracles ? Probably not.

Mending celana oranye untuk bepergian

I last mended these cotton pants back in March 2021. They belong to a friend who bought them in Indonesia a number of years ago and used them as comfortable pants to wear when travelling (celana untuk bepergian) - particularly on planes. When they split, I offered to mend them, using patches of Indonesian batik, of which I have plenty. 

They are now patchwork pants and keeping them going has become an amusement, challenge and narrative. With another long flight coming up in a couple of months, my friend discovered yet another split.

Of course it's mendable, say I. 

I raided my container of cotton off-cuts for a suitable piece to reinforce the inside of the tear.

The tear was against a pocket. It didn't take much to undo one pocket edge to place the patch underneath.

I  zigzagged around on the outside, then stitched down the edges on the inside. This won't be seen.

I could then place a patch on the outside to cover the mend. This time I used a piece of Dancing Spirit Brown from the Aboriginal Fabric Gallery in Alice Springs. It fitted with the colour scheme, and seemed appropriate. 

I'm invoking protection for the wearer, rather than protection of the pants!

It was an easy matter to stitch the pocket back down.

So the pants can keep travelling, and protecting their wearer. There's a way to go before the orange disappears and the orange travel pants become batik travel pants. When that happens it will be time to introduce orange patches. 

Salamat Jalan!

Mending

 I have had a pile of mending on my sewing machine for a while, four tops with those annoying holes that are caused by rubbing against jeans hardware - studs and zip. Although I like jeans, I have moved to wearing bamboo pull-on trousers in summer and merino ones in Winter, for reasons of both comfort and avoidance of those holes.  

This week I tackled the pile of damaged tops - and a couple of merino trousers which had developed ladders in the interlock fabric.

One of the tops was a fairly damaged cheap t-shirt, machine-embroidered around the neckline. I decided to use the embroidery for patching and the rest of it as rags. A piece of the t-shirt embroidery worked quite well on the blue wool top.               

I had two commercial patches I had bought from Jumbly-Oomph, Deeds not words and I Dissent. They are designed as iron-ons for sturdier cloth than these tops, but I thought it worth trying, stitching them on by machine rather than ironing. 

I used cotton tape to stitch over the small runs in the merino trousers, both on the inside and the outside. Hopefully it will hold. 

It remains to be seen how long these last and whether it was worth the effort. For now, it keeps a few garments out of landfill - and off my sewing machine!