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Monday, May 15, 2017

Repairing Clothes Quickly When Travelling

Problems
The elastic goes in your knickers, slip, pants, pyjama bottoms? What do you do?

Answers
Carry a sewing kit with a safety pin in it. Use the safety pin to make the waist smaller.

Alternatively use the safety pin to attach the lower garment to an upper garment.

Sew a dart in the loose waist. If the cotton colour does not match, turn the garment inside out and sew a pleat so the wrong colour cotton does not show. Have the shortest stitch showing at the front, the longer side of the cotton at the back.

Spare Buttons
Many sewing kits contain a spare button and / or a press stud. If you add a short piece of ribbon, in an emergency, you can quickly sew on a loop for the button, Chinese style.

You can also buy press on buttons.

A spare tie pin can also be used as a temporary fix for fallen or torn garments.

If you have a stain, it can be hidden  but a button, or a pin on corsage - a real or silk flower.

Spare Elastic
If you need elastic in a hurry, a hair band from your pony tail, a set of elastic hair bands from the nearest accessory and souvenir shop or supermarket, even one dropped on the ground, abandoned and dirty, can be picked up, washed and dried.

The plastic 'rubber' bands which people drop everywhere - Singapore and London, can be used in an emergency to hoist or tighten clothes. They won't last long, but will probably last for an evening. You can either cut them into strips or press the circle into a double line. Make sure to sew down the ends of your long loop.

Sewing Service
In a three, four or five star hotel you can get help from, the valet service, the room cleaner, the attendant at the club lounge, the concierge, porter or receptionist, or phone housekeeping. Even in a little guest house, the owner or a fellow guest may be able to help you. Somebody might lend you a safety pin, needle or cotton.

If you are in a restaurant or at a conference in a hotel, even if you are not staying at the hotel, somebody might be able to help.

Appeal For Help
At any kind of conference where they make announcements, a joking announcement can fill a boring gap and wait between speakers. You or somebody else can say, jokingly, "Does anybody have a needle and cotton? A guest's underwear is falling down. Wait, she's frantically waving. I'm not to say that. It's her skirt. No, I'm not to say that, I'm just to ask for a needle and cotton. Hands up if you have a needle and cotton. Hands up if you wish you had! Does anybody have another solution. Ah - our saviour!  A guest has been saved from embarrassment. We've all been saved from embarrassment. A Mrs Sewing Kit. A warm round of applause for save the day Sally / Sarah / Dolly."

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.  If you are working and want to come back and read more later, you also follow and email a link to yourself. Please share links to posts.

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