Clothing Repair and Care. . . Get the Most Out of Your Clothing
Get the most out of your clothing budget. Don't forget to review our tips for buying Cheap Clothes
Clothing repair doesn't have to be seamstress work. You can salvage some of your favorite or most needed clothing items with simple easy to do repair. With a little help from a couple of "how to" resources you can even work miracles.
Get the most life out of your clothing by caring for it properly. Reading and following labels is a good start. Launder and store clothes in their proper recommended fashion and your bargains will pay you over and over for years to come.
Clothing repair isn't all about sewing. Keeping stains under control is an age old challenge. Especially with children. My favorite stain recipe comes from the Tightwad Gazette, by Amy Dacycyn.
One cup Clorox II powder ( I have used generic with success) and One cup Cascade dishwashing powder in a five gallon bucket, fill with hot water, soak overnight. This removes almost anything, especially food stains. Be careful with non colorfast or delicate fabrics.
I wait until I have several items to de-stain to get the most out of each stain removal formula. Of course, I always try to buy the ingredients on sale, with a coupon, and sometimes even a rebate to make it even more economical!
Although I have not tried it (old habits die hard), Mary Hunt offers a spray formula that sounds more convenient. On page 210 of Mary Hunt�s "Tiptionary" the recipe is as follows:
� cup white vinegar
� cup household ammonia
� cup Wisk
� cup water
Combine in spray bottle. Spray on stain and launder as usual.
I�m not the sewing type as far as sewing complete outfits. I can however manage to do minor clothing repairs sufficiently. Sometimes an item will be priced extremely low because it requires a simple seam stitch or a button. I can handle that. One thing I don�t do is zippers. Never learned how to do the contraptions right.
While I was still learning how to make smart pre-owned purchases I made the mistake of investing in a brand new pair of famous brand name jeans that had a broken zipper. After all how much could it cost to have a zipper put in? Well I�ll tell you what it cost me, $14.95 + tax.
Considering the jeans only cost me $1.50 the purchase was still a great value since this brand can sell for twice that much. The disappointment for me was that I pride myself in spending no more than $5 on a good quality piece of clothing at my favorite thrift store. This was way over budget for me!
Of course, if I could have sewed the zipper myself, and I probably would have recycled a zipper from another piece of discarded clothing, it would have been a great bargain at only $1.50 plus a few minutes of my time. But, I did learn my lesson and maybe one day I�ll learn how to fix those zippers myself!
Of course any clothing repairs can be made using recycled material and accessories as needed.
At Sewing.org you'll find lots of resources, information, and can even learn to sew . Basic, beginner, and intermediate instructions are available for a variety of common tasks.
And, don't forget you can not only find great bargains at resouces for buying
cheap clothes
you can also recycle your unwanted clothing by selling or donating!
Quilting
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