It can be so fun to find vintage clothing in an antique shop or thrift shop. I love the pieces of clothing that come into the shop from a different era. However there can be some challenges when working with vintage clothing.

The primary challenge is the brittle material.

Perhaps it is dry rot, which is what Circa Vintage Archives addresses in a blog post on Vintage 101.

For this dress it does not appear to have dry rot but the fabric is brittle. The seam tears easily at any stress or pressure. As you can see in this phot below, the binding under the arm remained intact but the fabric held into the binding tore away.

This dress had a sash with it so I was able to use pieces off the sash to repair the under arm.

When vintage fabric decays and tear it tend to be along the grain of the fabric.

To prevent less strain on the arm hole I also enlarged it some with the extra fabric, hoping to create greater ease of movement.

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A great book on mending that will help you practice your handstitching on repair projects is Mending Matters

Challenge #2: The thread rots on vintage clothing

This is a classy vintage top coat in excellent condition. However the thread all through the lining had rotted away. Much of it was stitched back together by my client but the underarms of the lining had become in serious disrepair.

I added new lining fabric to the underarm for greater stability and to cover the existing tears which were significant.

Be sure to check out some of my latest sewing projects on the blog and don’t miss my free tutorial on how to alter a blouse that is too big – filled with step by step photos and explainations.