Day 66 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: unexpectedly having to repair a backpack.

When I arrived at my first meeting of the day, as I put down my backpack I noticed something wrong.

The seam holding in the shoulder strap that I usually put on first was coming apart – badly.  All that weight and strain had finally taken its toll on the seam and the thread had finally come undone.  It looked as though the strap would come out when I put the backpack on again.  (You will have to take my word on that because, unfortunately, I didn’t think of taking a picture until after I had nearly finished mending it!)  Lucky for me, the strap managed to stay in place all day.

I had a good look at the problem later in the day.

How I planned to repair a backpack

Initially I thought I would take my backpack to the bookmaker for repair, just like I did with a handbag version.

Yet when I saw how little the seam had come undone (about 4 cm), and considered that it was made of fabric, I thought I could repair the backpack myself.

It would be easy!

I was lucky that the strap and all the components of the seam appeared to be still pretty well in place – all it required was sewing the seam back together.

All I had to do was turn the backpack inside out and then sew up the hole with some strong, thick thread!

All is not what it seems

How wrong I was.

The biggest problem was that the backpack is made to carry a laptop. This means it is very well made – and padded. In other words, it is very robust and – despite all appearances – quite stiff.

And that, combined with the size of the zip openings (which I had thought were big), means that it cannot be turned inside out. I wondered if that would mean that a bookmaker either would be ‘unable’ (or unwilling) to make the repair or would pull apart other seams first, just to get access to the repair site. (Goodness knows what it would look or function like when it was all put back together again!)

Not to worry – I would just do my best to sew it from the inside.

However, the same things that made it impossible to turn the backpack inside out also made it difficult to physically get inside and manoeuvre the seam, needle and thread to make the repairs. And I have small hands!

It was also difficult to see into the bottom corner of the backpack.

I decided that part of the problem was starting the sewing right at the hole, which was deep inside the backpack.

To remedy this situation, I decided to start sewing closer to the top and work my way down to the hole. That way, the thread would be well and truly fixed to the item before I reached the hole. (Bonus: the seam would get some extra strengthening.) In that way, when I reached the hole I could just concentrate on repairing it instead of having to get the thread attached to the fabric at the same time. I also didn’t know if I would be able to close the entire hole, so this method would at least enable a strong seam as far as I could sew.

I also made sure that I had good light inside the backpack so I could best see what I was doing.

Sewing with brute strength

It also turned out that the materials used to make the backpack were much more difficult to handle than I anticipated.

• The fabrics are industrial strength – of course! To sew by hand, this requires considerable brute strength from fingers and hands. It was easier where I could use existing needle holes, but that became more and more difficult the further into the backpack I went. That was because I couldn’t necessarily see where they were. More importantly, though, I had very limited room to manoeuvre the needle.
• Passing the needle and thread through the fabric turned out to be very difficult. This showed up in the thread being worn away with each pass through the fabric. First of all it started ‘banking up’ behind the needle’s eye and then it just broke. And that was heavy duty embroidery thread! Industrial-strength nylon thread may have been more robust. However, it is synthetic (which comes with climate and environmental damage) and I was using what I had to hand).
• I discovered that the exterior fabric also had a thick waterproof coating on the inside.  I took great care to avoid puncturing it. However, the combination of poor accessibility and visibility and the brute strength required for sewing led to few small pinpricks. Hopefully this hasn’t compromised the fabric.
• When I reached the point where the strap was inserted, I found it almost impossible to push the needle through the combination of strap, backpack fabric and seam cover. I used a lip balm tube as a thimble to push the needle through.

The amount of effort involved in the sewing was quite tiring, so I did it in stages.

I was happily surprised that I the limit of where I could sew coincided with the end of the hole.

I strengthened the repair by finishing off the thread by sewing back and forth over where the hole had been.

The result?

I was pretty proud of myself for what I had achieved:

• I achieved what I set out to do: repair a backpack.
• A pretty neat and strong repair. In fact, you can barely see the repair (made in a contrasting colour) from the outside, even by spreading the seam!
• I saved money and one or two trips to the bookmaker.
• I saved resources, by repairing with what I had rather than discarding something because of a small but important fault.

The challenge

Next time something made of fabric needs a ‘small’ repair, try to do it yourself.  If you don’t know what to do, there are others who can show you what to do:

• Ask for help from someone in your family or from a friend. Older women are often particularly helpful in this regard
• Take it along to a local repair cafe
• Watch an online video

Join me!

Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.

So let’s embark on this journey together.

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A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!