Clothes Maintenance 101: How to build a repair kit

Are you new to clothes mending but don’t have any sewing equipment? It is easy and inexpensive to pull together a few pieces ready to repair your clothes.

Basic clothes repair kit (from left to right)

  1. Sharp pair of scissors – only use for cutting fabric and thread. They will become blunt if used for cutting paper. Regular stationery scissors are OK as long as they are new or have recently been sharpened
  2. Threads – Black and white are essential, a neutral colour such as beige and grey are useful as is navy. Poly/cotton thread is the most versatile for all garments.
  3. Seam ripper or unpicker – a sharp tool which helps to unpick hems for alteration or to remove broken zips
  4. Darning mushroom or egg – Makes it easier to darn holes in jumpers, t-shirts and socks
  5. Set of needles – a variety of sizes is useful. Some with bigger ‘eyes’ or holes to for knitting yarn to feed through. Plus thinner smaller needles for finer fabrics
  6. Tape measure – for measuring the hemline of trousers and jeans for alteration
  7. Safety pins and dressmaking pins – for patching and alterations
  8. Darning yarn – to repair jumpers and socks
  9. Tailors chalk or a fabric marker – for alterations
  10. Spare buttons
Use an old tin or plastic box to keep your repair kit in one place

Where to buy equipment

Many pieces in our repair kits have been donated by friends of Fast Fashion Therapy. We prefer pre-used equipment as much as possible. Ask around, you might know someone who has more sewing equipment than they need. Charity shops are usually an excellent place to find sewing odds and ends but sadly not at the moment with all the shops closed. Ebay and Etsy are a good online alternative, especially for darning mushrooms. Or try your local haberdashery store and see if they have an online shop whilst we are practising social distancing.

Darning and Patching Kits

We have created Darning and Patching Kits to help get started with various coloured yarns, swatches of fabric, different sized needles and an instruction card. All kits cost £10 (free shipping to UK). We also have a pack of spare buttons, all on our Etsy shop