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Another few hastier mends here, this time for small holes that cropped up on some jorts that I needed wearable! Originally threw these on here so I could get them up and working for wearing on camera scanning microfiche :)

On that note, let's start with the thematic mend for this batch, a little internet archive logo! Split the black floss to roughly match the thickness of the sashiko thread I tend to use for white in embroidery situations, and stuck the drawn-on dissolvable backing to the whip stitched hole. (Was going to take my chances just wetting that little section to get the backing out, and it turned out to work just fine :3)

It was actually a bit of a process to get that design onto the backing, couldn't find an archive logo at the right scale as is, and had to do some nonsense with zooming an image and screenshotting at the same time to get it at the right size!

Finished up the white stitching, and got a few rows of black stitching in before I remembered to take a picture! This one was just satin stitches, so it shaped up quite quickly. I could have perhaps placed several of those that form the pillars a little more precisely, but it still reads quite well, in my humble opinion! (Hey, gives me room to maybe add some horizontal white stitching to fill the gap and imply the column shape a little more strongly)

Next up is another additive mend, the little void with eyes didn't quite hold off the ravages of the hole beneath it, and with the direction it spread, I thought a little woven picot was in order, to keep the fabric from eroding further. I landed on a wizard hat for the little goober, maybe I had final fantasy's black mage on the brain, maybe I just wanted a little more magic in my day, who knows!

Either way, the texture of the picot stitching here really did great at sort of implying the curve of a traditionally conical wizard hat! Especially so when contrasted against the flat-on brim being outlaid by some simple satin stitching. The little wizard will make another appearance eventually, here, he's gonna get a few little icicle spells to cover the hole expanding in another direction (and, honestly, I'll be resisting the urge to tack on a piece of patch fabric beneath the little guy) (maybe I should look up a starry sashiko pattern just in case that turns out to be necessary!)

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This one blew by pretty speedily, thankfully! Y'see, it's been getting steadily hotter (as it does when summer sneaks up on me each year), and so I needed these shorts fixed so I could quit overheating in full length jeans.

Of course, the real trouble here is that this is a tear in need of repair that cropped up after I'd done all that nice prep work hemming patches by machine, (see also, this post) so I had to fold and pin these hems by hand (with a good bit of fuss to get them to sit nice on the fabric itself), but thankfully it managed to get set Just So, covering the edge of the previous patch quite handily.

I like to be careful with the placement of my edge stitches even when they're not holding down a hem, because even though you're supposed to remove the tack stitches holding the patch on after getting the sashiko pattern in, I like the framing effect they provide. Just bonus points that they're playing double duty here, if you ask me!

Ignoring the slightly wibbly framing stitches at the corners there, we come to the step I've previously ignored! Not this time, now I've learned my lesson, albeit begrudgingly, that leaving out the whip stitching around the hole you're mending just leads to the hole stubbornly continuing to expand. Seeing as I'm a bit sick of patching this same set of four holes, in they go! Isn't that yellow contrast nice?

I hadn't really decided on a pattern quite yet here, but I did know I didn't particularly want to gamble on my needle pulling through adhesive nicely this time, after the last mend took forever from overeager self-adhesive patterns, so on goes the quarter inch grid! Admittedly, I do stitch a good bit better with those dissoluble backings, especially when it comes to intentional variation of stitch length, but the increase in speed really was unparalleled here.

Here comes my mistake to let the faeries out, as it were! (Each project gets one, and I don't get to pick when) Originally I wanted to continue that zig-zag pattern on the existing patch, but I miscounted the offset on these horizontal stitches, and had to pivot, as we can see with the next batch here.

Admittedly, the squares pattern I landed on really emphasized the way the ruler didn't quite hold the fabric still when I was drawing those lines (making the grid I was stitching from a bit wobbly), but even then, I really enjoy the way the squares came together nonetheless, and it seems like its holding up particularly well! Maybe those whip stitches are worth it, huh?

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Another multi-parter for both thighs across the main seam of a pair of jeans! This is a VERY common canvas for sashiko 'round this household, seeing as both Razz and I have pretty thorough thighs. Luckily, having learned my lesson (somewhat) from the giant patches in the same area I did previously, I split this into two designs, even if the patch fabric itself was one piece. Both designs are from wrenbirdart's stick and stitch collections, barring that little section on the first one I pencilled myself, as the main pattern was slightly too small.

First up we've got this genuinely delightful set of little asterisks, formed out of vertical, horizontal, and two diagonal sets of stitches. The first set of stitches immediately make clear that I really should be more careful about my math when I'm trying to duplicate the wrenbirdarts patterns onto my own dissolvable backing. Sure, that set all the way on the right is off by increasing increments of a quarter inch with each set, but I actually don't mind that look too badly in the end. The general look of all the eight-pointed overlapping crosses works super well, and I may take some inspiration from the mildly-fumbled pattern on that hand-pencilled section to make an alternating pattern of standard crosses and the asterisks, in the future.

Secondly, there's this pine forest design! I really had a love hate relationship with this one, as the pattern itself is SUPER pretty, I mean, look at that final picture! It's so beautiful! The major downside, though, is that it doesn't lend a lot of opportunities to load up straight stitches in a row. As you can kinda see in the progress shots, you do that central "coordinate grid" of a given pine top, then go quarter by quarter, filling in the other stitches, one by one, individually. Which, to me, is SUPER boring, I much prefer to load up a bunch of straight stitches in a row, then pull them all through, smoothing the fabric afterwards. So, partially because I wanted to get it done and over with as fast as possible, and partially because my jean shorts were in DIRE need of fast repairs before I could wear them in the (then incoming) summer heat, I somewhat sped my way through the pattern, in hopes that I can later come back to this pattern, and develop a more-loadable version that still keeps the pine-like beauty of the finished piece here.

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Another attempt at some sashiko! This one is in the same thigh-rubbing spot as previous, but on a different set of jean shorts. Given how much I have to wrangle patches in this particular spot, I'm genuinely tempted to just put one in right as I buy the pants, maybe with some cute fabric so it's gradually revealed?

I'm about halfway done here, and you can tell just how much drawing out the grid (in this case, with lines every quarter-inch) helped me get the pattern I was aiming for much more effectively than the last one, where I was freehanding the lines.

Originally, the plan with this one was to have all the zig-zags point the same way, but honestly? I kinda dig the tiered waterfall vibe on this one more! Quite the improvement, in comparison to the one previous, I'd say, and that all comes down to technique.

I really enjoy the process of sashiko mends, it's very satisfying to load up a few straight stitches onto the needle just so where they need to be, then smooth out the fabrics they pin together, over and over. Very meditative, which makes it a good way to keep the hands busy while listening to a podcast! (Like, say, my podcast, Paper Cuts, perhaps? :3) plus, after you're done, you get to return a piece of clothing to use you would have lost otherwise! Isn't that a delight on its own?

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Time for another traditional embroidery mend! This time, we're trying out the Puncetto Valsesiano stitch, which, after I finished this up, I've found, is an entire style of needlelace! For this patch, though, we just did stitch after stitch after stitch, no fancy patterning. (I might do fancy patterning later, to be fair! been reading up on things, and I've got a few smaller repairs to make that would suit it quite nicely!)

One row of stitches in, and I was thinking, oh this can't be so bad! this is actually quite soothing, all these repetitive actions, and with such a delightful, knitting-like texture!

This many stitches in, and sure, I'm still having a good time, but mostly, I'm finding out how much thread this takes! Poor razz, @razzmatazic, I thought this was going to be a simple, small patch, so I borrowed her thread to work on this one! You can't quite tell in this shot, but I'm actually about to run out of thread!

After likely much, much more fuss than was strictly necessary, including accidentally picking a slightly different color of floss because of some mislabeled strands, noticing I'd dropped enough stitches to need to throw some extra ceylon stitching in a gap, and a probably pretty noticable shift in texture because of single vs. double threading, we've got ourselves a patch that, even despite its shortcomings, I really dig the look of!

Unfortunately, I didn't make this patch wide enough generally, so I've got a few more holes that'll be getting filled by a big 'ol sashiko patch that's going to layer overtop the puncetto, eventually! Stay tuned, I'm just as curious as you are as to how that'll look.

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This particular mend turned out to be MUCH more complex, involved, and fussy than I really ever expected it to be at the outset. That said, after all the work where I focused on taking my time to get things just so, I found out that I'm quite capable of handling larger projects like this!

First up, here, before starting, my partner Razz and I sat down, and went through our clothes with a careful eye. More and more of her pants in particular were in need of little fixes here and there, and I figured rather than going about it all piecemeal and in no particular order, not accomplishing the fixing of clothes she needs, we put them together into an order of "most wanted fixes" to "least pressing fixes".

Once I had all that info, I settled in with a measuring tape, and got to identifying all the mends that needed to happen. For every piece that was more than, say, a few inches of rip, or of a shape that standard embroidery wouldn't cut it for a fix, I cut out a piece of patch fabric, with the intention of making use of these patches by doing sashiko mends.

Step 1: pin the hem of the patch down, initially hoping to run it through the sewing machine to have a nice hem! Sure, it was kinda fussy doing the quarter inch hems, since I hadn't really done this before, but it's not _too_ bad in hindsight!

Step 2: Realize that the sewing machine foot you have on hand got mixed up with a family member's in a move, and begrudgingly realize you have to re-pin the hemmed patch directly to the jeans being mended. Grumble, grumble! Oh well, at least this light blue thread is going to be really cute on the jeans, so there's that.

Step 3: stitch down the patch to the fabric, blissfully unaware that this big of a patch which interacts with the main seams four times like this is going to be a huge pain later!

Step 4: with some clever use of tape and bumping the laptop brightness, make a tracing of the segaihana pattern onto the dissolvable backing. (I did realize later, mind you, that I could have just used something small and circular to draw this manually, but the tracing worked out just fine, so we take those!)

Step 5: get stitching, following the pattern on the backing! I get about this far before two things happen: first off, the sewing machine foot returned from family-home purgatory, and secondly, I realize that pushing this needle over and over with my bare hands is REALLY wearing out not only the muscles in my hands, but also thoroughly frustrating my skin, in the process.

So, as a little test of the sewing machine, I made this little palm thimble! the loop of thread on the left there loops around my middle finger, and then the denim takes the brunt of pushing the needle, instead of my poor fingies!

So, over the course of a few days, with a LOT of help from the palm thimble (some pieces even getting done on stream, go check out the vods: https://youtu.be/oeytUetT2Z0 and https://youtu.be/u6k-Yr4Vjn0) we get the first (major) panel done! Might not be super visible in these shots, but there is in fact a second piece to be stitched here!

So, after yet more tracing (which took a good bit more fuss, since I had to align it with the previous panel!) we find ourselves at step 6: do the second batch of stitching! Overall, I actually really enjoyed the way this piece came together, the segaihana pattern is super pretty to look at. Plus, I learned a LOT in doing this one, the big thing being, if you're going to have trouble on both sides of a thigh of a pair of jeans, even if the damage is spread evenly on either side, break the patches up along the main seam. Sewing through the many layers of that denim is particularly taxing, especially when I'm struggling to nail the positioning of the stitches to carry on a nice pattern!

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Okay, so brace yourselves gang, this one's a bit long as it's actually secretly 3 mends! First up, we've got some simple sashiko crosses with some nice contrasting bee-themed yellow fabric! You might not be able to tell by the way I've got that grid laid out partially in the progress shot there, but originally the idea was to have this one follow a pattern I'd found from someone on youtube that had a sort of 3 dimensional look to it, but I miscounted some stitches, and so had to stick with crosses instead.

As we can see here, it's pretty blatantly cleaner with the grid to use as reference! sure, my stitch length isn't exactly the same every time, but to be honest with you? I could probably only nail that with the stick and stitch patterns, they're at least roughly correct!

Unfortunately, I also mis-placed the fabric slightly in the process of that patch, so that leads me to the other two mends here! Coming off decorating that mask, I had a good bit of remaining embroidery thread in bi colors. Found a tutorial for the ceylon stitch, liked the way it came together, and since it's really great at squares, decided I could use another little bi flag, much closer to properly proportioned this time!

Last but not least here, we've got a flag for demisexuality, which, honestly? a piece of my identity I don't bring up much! I figured, though, in for a penny with the pride mends, in for a pound, and honestly, the little chevron wasn't even all that hard, I just adapted a crochet pattern for the stitch count. (Really, the hard bit was the purple stripe in the middle, as I had to chain all those single stitches together with only the black triangle as an anchor!)

I absolutely love the way this particular mend came together, even if it was mostly a recovery from fumbles. I swear, these jorts are cursed, they only got this sashiko patch because the normal denim patch I put on them previously wasn't the right size, either! Plus, after I wore them a bit more, the other side of the seam wore out, too, so I've still gotta apply a patch there, but hey, it's more wears than I would have gotten out of them normally anyway!

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Remember how I said the puncetto valsesiano didn't quite hit the spot just right for the mends I needed? Here's how I fixed it!

First up, we throw some stitches down to apply the patch fabric! I tend to keep my edge stitching, as I kinda enjoy the framing effect it applies to patterns, so I'm a bit more careful about the spacing of the straight stitches I use. Usually, I just see people kinda toss some tack stitches down they remove, and honestly, there's value to that too, make it so there's _just_ the pattern, y'know?

First up, over the puncetto, is the horizontal stitching. I'm using a pattern from wrenbirdarts, and It's intended that you do some weaving after the end of this pattern, but I wound up liking the look of it with just the stitching.

The pattern is really coming together with the vertical stitching here! That, and it's really coming across how well stitching through the puncetto is working out! If that didn't use so much thread for so little space, I might keep this particular order of techniques around! (Perhaps I'll have to use it for those ceylon stitched patches, eventually?)

Last but not least for the puncetto area, we've got the two diagonal sets of stitches! You're meant to weave between the small crosses in the "offset" area between the crosses with diagonals, but honestly, I looked at the way that finished piece looked, and didn't care for it. There's another woven pattern I've seen around that makes a sort of hexagon grid that I might take a shot at on another piece, though!

Next up, for the opposite side of the seam from the puncetto, I decided I wanted to make my own pattern based on a stitched example online! The idea of this is meant to evoke woven reeds in a basket, but I also thought it gave a sort of tetris-esque pattern. With some simple math (and a lot of help from a ruler!) I put down these lines Just So on the dissolvable backing.

Horizontal and vertical sets of stitches later, we've got a completed basketweave sashiko! This wound up being a really entertaining pattern to do, especially at this relatively small scale, because I could breeze through each line in, practically, one pass each!

Slightly unfortunately, the pattern doesn't really read at this small of a scale, so maybe I need to keep the basketweave pattern to be used on larger patches, instead. It's a real shame, because it's such a fun pattern conceptually! Oh well, guess I enjoyed the process more than the finished product this time :)

Last but not least, busted out the speed loom to do a little darn to cover a hole that expanded past its patch, ever so rudely (i actually misplaced the patch, like with the pride flag mends) (doesn't make the hole any less rude though) (especially since I didn't whip stitch the hole to hold still so I had to add this block of ceylon stitching after two or three wears to block the still expanding hole from further friction)