Originally published at: Kaketsugi: Japanese invisible fabric mending technique | Boing Boing
…
11 Likes
Truly a wonderful thing!
7 Likes
Agreed. Insane levels of skill and detail. But what happened to the loose threads on the outside? Were they ‘melted’ off by whatever she was doing on the inside?
Also, the client noticed …
- there’s now an even bigger hole somewhere else on the suit…
- OK let me fix that one, now
- but …
And so it goes, until the suit is just one huge but elegantly repaired hole. 
4 Likes
My manual dexterity-sense is tingling! Did anyone call for a threadbearer?
As I get older, and my eyesight poorer but manual dexterity better and better, for some reason I keep taking up activities that require me to use magnifying glasses and microscopes, so this is right up my alley.
8 Likes
Those ends of those threads were pulled back inside, after being fused to the inner face. A larger patch was fused to on top as well
The patch was show in the 30 min video in NHK’s website link, but it’s wasn’t a video I could embed properly so I just put a link to it at the end. ^____^
7 Likes
I saw the larger patch and I saw something that was presumably some fusing going on, but there was no sight of the threads being pulled back in - I guess that was edited out of the short video.
2 Likes
Yes, as someone who has some rudimentary sewing skills, I feel that some crucial information is lacking in the video, like where does that extra chunk of fabric come from? I know a lot of my garments don’t have any spare material, like the inside of a pocket, or enough seam allowance, and as you say, what happens to the loose threads? I feel like they must be pulled through to the wrong side of the material, but if so, it’s not shown how.
ETA: Commenter shichae says that there is a longer video which explains more.
3 Likes
Thanks; so the longer video shows the entire process, and this shorter one is a teaser. It would be a good skill to have.
2 Likes
I think my mom did this for a tweed jacket of mine, many years ago. It must have been in the 1990s, when smoking was still allowed on planes. I fell asleep with this guy smoking a cigarette next to me. When I got home, I noticed a hole burnt into my right sleeve.
I later showed it to my mom (she’s Japanese and was had taught herself tailoring), she said she could “re-weave” it. Sure enough, about a week later, she gave the jacket back to me, and it was perfect. Until now, I had no idea how she did it.
8 Likes
Without watching the video(s): is there a Buzz Rickson’s involved? Does Gibson narrate any of the vids?
2 Likes
After watching this video, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole of invisible mending, and there are a couple of different techniques; with a heavy patterned weave, like a tweed, there was one video showing someone who had clipped a small patch from someplace on the garment, separated all the threads, and used those threads to reweave the pattern.
3 Likes
Wow, this is absolutely mezmerising to see. Living with a cat who loves to crawl beneath our duvet and fight with the bedsheets, this would be a rather useful skill to have. Probably a bit too time consuming for that use case though 
1 Like
I just iron on a patch and then order new pants from Walmart.
When the video started I thought red thread? That’s not going to be invisible, then I realized she was using it pull the individual threads.
Such unknown and under appreciated skills in this world.
2 Likes
darning on ritalin.
They mentioned doing this with tshirt material - I believe that would entail snaking a thread through all the machine-knit loops on at least two sides. (and perhaps a bit on the other two as well, depending on what it takes to hide the ends well)
I’m still torn between sweatshop labor supplying cheap clothes vs just how much time and labor it takes to make clothes. Thrifting is nice, but still part of me wants to go full Gandhi* and get a loom running.
(* not full full, the guy had issues)
2 Likes
Thanks for your deep dive pulling up this pearl. That has to be what my mom did. 
3 Likes
It’s there, at 4:05, she uses a blue-handled tool to pull in the threads. Only a few, so I understand blinking and missing it.
3 Likes
You’re welcome. I’m now tempted to damage some of my own clothes so that I can try some of these techniques.
2 Likes
I found that each of the videos showed different stages of the process, and by watching both, it’s possible to figure out how they do it.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
