16 February 2014

A Tiny Post on Duck Tape

I was asked to repair a down vest jacket for my brother-in-law.  It got a few holes burnt on the inside of the jacket when he hung it over an outdoor light at our place.  Initially I used some sturdy lining fabric and made a large patch.  I stitched it on using tiny ladder stitches.  It was really neat and patched the holes well, but the down started leaking out around the edges.  I offered to have another go at it today.

After some thinking (and googling) I decided to try using Duck Tape to seal the holes.  I started by unpicking the patch and cleaning up all the loose down.  There were three holes in the jacket.  I cut neat circular patches, slightly larger than each burn hole, then covered the holes.  I firmly pressed down the edges of the tape to make sure they were properly stuck in place.  Finally I re-stitched the fabric patch in place.  The Duck Tape patches looked really neat, but I wanted to cover the area, as some of the fabric around the holes was a little crispy feeling.  The repair seems to have worked well, and the down is definitely sealed inside the jacket.  I'll be interested to see how the tape holds up in the long term.

Sorry, no pictures with this post.  I only thought about writing a quick post after I got home!

No comments:

Post a Comment