Back of a t-shirt with a dinosaur embroidered on top

Repair a tear in your t-shirt

While climbing trees someone's t-shirt got caught by a branch. Result: a tear in the back of this t-shirt. But you can easily repair a tear like this, it doesn't have to mean the end of your shirt. In this case, a very smiley dinosaur and a couple of embroidery stitches saved the day.

tear in blue t-shirt

The inspiration on how to repair came from the front of this shirt, where a cool snowboard dinosaur flashed me a wide smile. Something similar for the back should work, right?

front of t-shirt with smiley dinosaur

How to repair a tear in your t-shirt?

  1. First of all, iron a piece of interfacing on top of the tear on the inside of your shirt. This ensures that you don't only reinforce your fabric, it also ensures that your fabric will remain in place, which, in turn, makes it easier for you to embroider on stretchy fabric.
  2. Draw your design on the right side of your fabric, making sure you cover the hole tear, and the edges around the tear. Use an erasible marker when doing so for example - my favourite - a frixion pen, with which you can make the lines disappear with heat.
    Dinosaur drawn over tear in t-shirt using a frixion pen
  3. Choose colours in the same colour palette.
    Close up of a t-shirt with the different colours of yarn that will be used to repair the tear
  4. Use an embroidery hoop to get the tension of your fabric just right. You can embroider without using one, but believe me, it's easier with a hoop.
  5. Start embroidering.
  6. Ready? Iron your design, to make the drawing lines disappear (or use a hair dryer, works just as well). Do you still see some marks made by the embroidery hoop? Spray some water on your fabric, and iron again.

And just like that this dinosaur can carry on snowboarding and climbing trees.

Back of a t-shirt with a dinosaur embroidered over a tear

Do you have a t-shirt with a tear lying around that needs fixing? Feel free to drop me a line, and together we can find a solution.

Close up of embroidered dinosaur covering a tear in a t-shirt

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