Gear Repair – Green Beanie

The other day I was re-stitching a seam on a 15-year-old pair of fleece gloves that I love and will not give up on when it hit me.  While repairing gear in lieu of replacing it is in my nature, thanks Dad, many out there may be intimidated to jump over the hump and start fixing things on their own.  The reasons to fix instead of replace are many: Thrift, keep it out of the land fill, fun, satisfaction of knowing you had a hand in making something last, the list could go on and on.

This beanie ended up on the free table at my wife’s work, and she knows I have had a cold head since getting the hair cut, so the hat came home.  It likely ended up there due to the hole on the inside liner.   In this case the hat is fully lined with light fleece, the outer knit is stitched into shape and all the stitching is internal like a bag or teddy bear.  There are a few ways to repair this.  You have to decide if looks are really important of if this is going to be a “tractor repair”, what I call it when  you just want it to work without getting worse.  For the former, hand stitching would be the best path.  Since I will be riding with this, and it is like a pair of sweat pants for my head, I took the tractor repair approach. 

I have a sewing machine with a bunch of different stitches, but only end up using a few.  Sewing is easier than you think, and you probably know somebody with a machine who can help if you do not have one yourself.  A friend with a sewing machine can be as or more useful than a friend with a pickup truck.

For this repair I used the zig zag, first to bar tack the ends of the failing seam and then to throw a quick stitch over the seam.  I picked a polyester thread for its strength and the green sort of matched the hat in a complementary way, while showing up well enough for these pictures.

The bar tack will cross over the seam on both sides of the opening where the stitching still holds so that things will not unravel any further.  Set the machine to a medium wide zig zag with a very narrow stitch spacing.  Set the hat under the presser foot and stitch away.  The thickness and texture of the material in this case was a bit of a problem, the feed dogs were not grabbing onto the knit and I ended up feeding the material through by hand.  This resulted in a stitch with poor spacing, but it will serve its purpose.  The process is repeated at the bottom of the hole as well.  I could have stopped here and the hole would not get any bigger.  I decided to throw a wider zig zag along the length of the hole just because, well I could.  This will likely keep the hole closed up as long as the rest of the hat survives. 

The end result is not too bad and I have a “new” hat for my morning rides.  Off to the laundry pile in case there were other reasons it is sitting on the free table.

 

6 thoughts on “Gear Repair – Green Beanie”

  1. Hi Rob,

    Great blog you have here and I dig this post. I sew stuff too. I made my tarp for camping, a vest and I’m in the process of making a quilt for some bikepacking. One of the projects that I intend to tackle is a custom frame bag like you made for my Long Haul Trucker.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Errin

    1. I am guessing with you gear list that you have been doing your homework on the MYOG forum at backpackinglight. Assuming your quilt is for our area, Southern California, what did you choose for insulation?

  2. I haven’t spent too much time there at BPL, although I am a member. My quilt is the Ray Jardine with the Alpine Upgrade. I intend to use it on the Tour Divide this year. I’ve also built a vest kit from Thru-hiker.com.

    Did you come on the Salsa ride at TCB back in October? I think we may have met there.

    1. Yes I was on the salsa ride, I was pushing my Rawland up a few of the hills. I think we had talked a bit about some low speed dymo hub lighting issued you had hoped to overcome.

      1. That’s right, I remember the Rawland. I think we were both at the back walking up some of that steep stuff.

        You inspired me to get off my ass and start sewing my quilt together. Last night I was able to get one side done. Hopefully I’ll get a few more hours on it over the weekend.

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