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.

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?

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.
   
3. Choose colours in the same colour palette.
   
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.

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.