Is it worth mending school uniforms?

The schools in our area are back in session very soon, so I thought I would dig out the uniform from last term and have a look at the condition of it. I’ve spoken before about removing stains from otherwise well-fitting items, but stains are some of the easier things to remedy.

Harder, are the little tears which result from slightly-too-long-trousers being rubbed along the ground, or from sweater cuffs being teased at with teeth during difficult sums.

I thought we’d start with a trouser leg cuff.

I started by turning the trousers inside out and unpicking the half of the cuff with a hole in it.

Here, you can see how big the hole is, and how frayed the edges are.

For the purposes of this post, I drew roughly along where I planned to stitch the fabric using tailor’s chalk. It doesn’t show up especially well, but I hope you can make it out.

It’s possibly easier to see in this photo as I’ve already started stitching. I tried to get as close to the edge as I could so that I lost as little length as possible.

Here it is, all stitched up. The raw edges will be contained within the cuff, so there’s much less risk of fraying now.

Next, it’s just a case of folding the cuff back into place and stitching it down again. As you can see, the edges of the trouser leg no longer line up, but when these are being worn, you won’t be able to see this at all.

To reattach the cuff, I used a simple whip-stitch (or felling stitch), taking care to only catch the tiniest bit of the leg fabric with the needle.

When the repair is finished, it looks like this – it’s only a little neater, but it is significantly less likely to unravel. Again, you won’t notice this mend when the trousers are worn because of how the fabric hangs over the shoe.

This is how it looks ‘end-on’. You can see the tuck, but if the difference in the way this is folded bothers you, then you can continue stitching all the way around the inside of the cuff…

Which is a repair I’ll show you on a sweater at some point soon…

Do schools use uniforms where you are? If they do, do you buy new every year, second-hand, or repair the previous ones (presuming they still fit)? What are your uniforms made of? Our logo’ed ones are all poly-cotton blends, which is far from ideal.

As ever, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Farn xx

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