Unfortunately, I do not have the before picture of this shirt. In the vertical seam, there is stress in the fabric and it is starting to rip out. It was a favorite shirt of my daughter's, so we wanted to preserve the fabric so that it wouldn't rip more. I knew I needed to make a patch and reinforce the weak fabric, but I did not want an unsightly patch on the top side. Since the shirt has lots of topstitching, and a western cut to it, I decided to add a topstitching design that would hold the patch in place.
Here I am making a cardstock template the size I want the patch to be.
I cut out a fabric patch 1" bigger than the template on all sides. I pressed the raw edges over the template.
Here is the right side of the patch, with raw edges turned under.
I pinned the patch to the wrong wide of the shirt.
Then I trimmed down the template 1/8" on both sides so that I could trace the outside edges.
These traced lines will be my topstitching lines to guide me.
I didn't have topstitching thread, which is thicker, so I used all-purpose thread on a spool and on a bobbin, and threaded them both through the needle. This will give me two-ply thread in my topstitching. I also lengthened the stitching to 3.5, to match the original shirt.
I stitched on the right side of the shirt, leaving thread tails at the beginning and at the end. I did not want unsightly backstitching to show. I stitched two rows, 1/4" apart from each other. I also did one stitch across the top and down the middle to help secure the patch.
Since I didn't backstitch, I now pull on the bobbin threads, which pulls the needle threads to the wrong side of the shirt. Catch the needle thread loops with a pin or needle and pull.
Tie a knot and put a pin or needle in the thread loop. Pull on the threads to guide the knot up next to the fabric. Pull the knot tight and then do another knot. Then clip the thread tails.
Here is the finished repair, which looks like a design element of the shirt.
Now the shirt will last for many more wears!
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