Make do and mend: Old friend edition

It is now day six of my 12-Day challenge to clean or mend 12 items from my own wardrobe. Because for my business I fix a lot of clothing issues, I never get to my own. Or I never used to...but now I’m almost in a habit!

Today I come to a 1970s knit top that has been at the bottom of my mending pile for quite some time. It is nothing fancy and it appears to have been worn quite a lot before it came to me. It was someone’s old friend. It is hard not to love that row of buttons down the front.

I found the top at an estate sale some time ago. I was gathering up vintage clothing when I saw some photos on a bureau and realized that I was in the house of a friend of mine who had passed away a year before. I didn’t know this was the family home in which she grew up and I didn’t recognize the clothing, but when I inquired I found out that this was my friend’s very closet as a teenager.

Of course I had to keep this top. Not only does it have a delightful row of white buttons down its front but it was an old friend...of an old friend.

The top is black nylon knit and it had two not-so-tiny holes on the side front. The hem was stitched with that undependable 1970s plastic thread. One pull and it is out of there, so although only a stretch of hem was missing, I decided to resew the whole thing by hand. Because of the stretch knit I kept the stitches loose enough for give.

 The top is washable but tends to get lots of wrinkles, as you can see.

I sewed the holes up with basically the same technique I use for all knits (here is a tutorial from Lady Ott). The smooth fabric shows a mend but once I had steamed the top (smoothing out the fabric’s wrinkles was easy with a steamer) they weren’t conspicuous.

 Now it’s ready to go again.