Sassy Sewing

Sewing with Powder!

Saturday, August 22nd, 2015

Invisible fabric repairs? Sounds too good to be true.

I’d seen this Prym Repair Powder at the wholesaler a few months back and it pricked my curiosity. So I ordered some and, in the spirit of ’never-sell-anything-you-don’t-understand’ I thought I’d best learn how to use it.

The idea is simple, you actually glue a small piece of fabric to the front of the damaged garment which stops the tear or hole getting any bigger.

The instructions on the packet are apparently written for either birds of prey or employees of a magnifying glass factory. Even my most sooper-dooper spectacles failed to focus on a font size measured in microns, not millimetres.

 

Anyhoo with lots of squinting and cursing I finally got it and set about testing said powder on a piece of scrap fabric which I deliberately put a hole in.

First off, measure the tear or hole that needs repairing. Mine was a thin tear, 6cm long. Then decide what size of patch you’re going to need to cover it – you probably want it to be 1.5cm longer and wider than your tear. I decided my patch was going to be rectangle, but it could be round too – all depends on what you’re working with really. Cut a piece of fabric the size and shape you need for the patch.

Now get a piece of card or paper and draw round your fabric onto it – in the middle. Cut out this shape only, keeping the rest of the card intact. This creates a template the same size as your patch.

Put the template over the repair – on the right side. Shake a decent amount of powder over the hole in the template – so effectively onto the fabric. Now remove the template carefully, put your patch on to the powder and iron, using an ironing cloth or greaseproof paper to protect your iron. And that’s it – your tear is literally glued together and won’t get any worse.

 

Is it any good? I’d say yes, it could be very useful and I’ll definitely be using it again, but here are some points to think about when you use it for the first time:

  1. Because the patch is on the front, you need to choose carefully what fabric you’re going to repair with it. I was using a plain fabric and the patch very clearly shows. I think it the fabric was patterned it wouldn’t have been so obvious.
  2. You need quite a bit of powder but be careful to brush away any that is showing before you put the iron on. I had some overhanging my patch a bit and when I ironed it, it turned to glue, which I couldn’t get off. If this had been a proper garment it would have shown very clearly. You can see this in the photo below. Next time I’ll be much more careful at this stage.
  3. Don’t make your patch too big – mine was far too wide. This will help it be slightly more invisible.
  4. This is a good technique for repairing linings or crotches or other places less visible.
  5. Your patch will need pattern matching. My plain fabric has a very feint line in it that I had to match to help with the invisibility thing.

Repair powder is £3.45 and is available at all good sewing shops, including Sassy Sewing

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Below is how it looked when I’d finished ironing – can you see how I’ve used far too much powder, which is now showing as glue. If I’d not made this mistake, the whole thing would be pretty good.

 

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And this is the wrong side, showing the tear, which is clearly glued together firmly.

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