Repair & Maintenance

Sewing holes and tears

Sewing-machine work on woollen clothing with a reinforcing patch.

A reinforcing patch on the back + a zigzag over the hole. How to fix tears in wool, synthetics and shell clothing — including when you want to keep the waterproofing.

One of the most common wear injuries is a tear or rip in fabric. The simplest repair is to place a reinforcing patch on the back and zigzag over the hole. The result: even load distribution and a repair that lasts.

Materials

  • Reinforcing patch in the same or similar fabric as the garment
    • Wool for woollen clothing (preferably elastic, from an old woollen garment that has other holes you do not use)
    • Synthetics for synthetics
  • Sewing thread in a suitable colour
  • Sewing machine with a zigzag stitch (it can also be done by hand, but a machine is stronger and faster)
  • Pins to hold the patch in place

How to do it

  1. Lay the work flat on the sewing table. The garment must not hang and pull at the fabric — that distorts the seam.
  2. Bring the sides of the tear together so that they overlap just slightly.
  3. Cut a piece of fabric a little larger than the hole.
  4. Turn the garment inside out, lay the patch over the hole on the back, and fix it with 1-2 pins.
  5. Turn it back to the right side.
  6. Sew with a zigzag stitch — stitch length 0, width 3-4. Pull the fabric slowly through to get even coverage.
  7. Remove the pins as you sew.

Variant: woollen clothing

Use leftovers from an old woollen garment that has holes elsewhere — use the intact parts as reinforcement. Cut a piece that overlaps well beyond the hole. That gives both a colour match and an elastic match.

Variant: waterproof shell clothing

If it is Gore-Tex or other waterproof shell clothing and you want to keep the waterproofing:

  1. Sew without a reinforcing patch first — just close the tear with a zigzag
  2. Glue or melt a patch onto the inside afterwards with a heat-bonding patch (varmevinyl) or urethane-based glue — it seals the seam and prevents water from passing through

For burnt holes where fabric is missing: glue the patch on the outside for a neater result.

By hand, not by machine

If you do not have a sewing machine, you can do the same with hand sewing. The stitch type is called “darning” — go back and forth in parallel lines that cover the hole, then at 90 degrees on top of it. It is slow but durable.

Back to Repair → · Tear in the crotch of trousers → · Gluing holes and tears in outdoor gear →

Text: Gina Wigestrand and Lars Peters, Snuitide (2022), revised 2026.

Video resources: Northern Playground — fix hole in ziplongs · Bykuben — stopping på maskin