Thursday, June 20, 2013

A Look At Reweaving And Its Various Methods

By Lana Bray


Reweaving damaged garments is a notable skill used to repair holes, tears and ripped parts. In the process, thread strands are woven by hand in the damaged area of the fabric, creating repairs that are almost invisible. Each weaver wears a magnifying glass plate and works with a tiny needle and threads in order to sew the damaged areas. Stitch through to stitch, the reweaver replicates the original structures of the garments in a way that the torn area is invisible.

This process is particularly handy in repairing damages found in fine wool such as moth holes. A weaver must carefully examine an evaluate how the tear or hole looks like, to find out what can be repaired in the garment and what is not possible. However, the garment owner is not assured that the repaired areas will be completely invisible.

There are several distinctive reweaving methods. On a basis of the condition and size of the torn area together with the fabric being worked on, any of the three methods can be applied. The French reweave is also referred to as an invisible reweave. The technique is applied to selected fabrics having small holes, tears and burns. Invisible strands of thread from unseen areas are in the real sense woven together using hands, such as an inseam or cuff.

Since this technique closes the tear, it creates a new garment, while it is almost impossible to distinguish the repair from the enclosing fabric. In the case of some garments like gabardine, the resulting repair is not always completely undetectable. This technique cannot be used on large holes as well as L-shaped tears.

These large holes or L-shaped tears that cannot be fixed by the French method are best sorted by the Inweaving technique. This method involves the reweave taking a small section of the hidden garment and placing it on the hole in a way that the pattern of the garment matches. The edges that have undergone repair cannot be seen by the naked eye. This method can be used on any tear irrespective of its size, just as long as the fabric covering it is large enough.

Reknitting technique is almost the same as the French method. It involves utilizing unseen strands from double knits, sweaters and woolen knits, then knitting them onto the area under damage. Elaborate care should be taken to match the style and knit pattern of the garments. Visibility depends on the color and type of the knit as well as the size of the tear.

In case someone plans to reweave a tear in a fine wool fabric that is suspected to be as a result of being eaten by moths and other insects, cleaning it first is advised. This is because most of reweavers can only work on cleaned garments. Additionally, the full extent of the tears may not be fully detectable until cleaning of the fabric is done.

The process of reweaving is a painstaking and labor intensive one that has to be done with magnifying glasses, top skills of the worker, and lamps with high intensity. Since this is the case, repair of a garment is likely to take up to about six weeks.




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