TWO HOLES IN MY HUSBAND'S POLO

My husband handed me his favorite polo the other day with two holes in it, asked if I could fix them. Both right at the top of the button placket, up near the collar, which is the one spot on a shirt where you can't hide anything.

It's a Tommy Bahama one, soft knit, the kind of thing that's been washed enough times to become the shirt someone reaches for without thinking. So "just get a new one" was never going to fly. He wanted this one back.

Ten minutes later he had it. All sewn up.

HOW I FIXED IT

I hand sewed both holes closed. No patch, no interfacing — they were small enough to pull shut, so that's what I did.

The technique, if you can call it that: come up through the fabric at the edge of the hole, pick up a little of the knit on each side, and draw the two edges together. Small bites, both sides, working across until the gap is closed. You're not darning a grid across the hole, you're easing the two sides back to meeting each other. On a hole this size that's enough.

I kept the stitches small and I kept checking the front as I went, because it's very easy to pull too tight and end up with a pucker that's more obvious than the hole was.

PICK THE CORRECT THREAD

Stretch thread. Not all-purpose.

This is a knit. It moves. All-purpose polyester thread does not move — it has no give in it at all. So you can do a perfectly neat repair with the wrong thread, he pulls the shirt over his head once, the fabric stretches, the thread doesn't, and your stitches snap. Now you've got a bigger hole than you started with and a husband who's lost faith in the whole operation.

I used Eloflex, which is a stretchable thread that behaves enough like the fabric that the repair moves with the shirt instead of fighting it. Any stretch thread will do the same job. The point is just: match the thread to the fabric. Stretchy fabric, stretchy thread.

WHAT CAUSED THE HOLES

Honestly, I'm not sure. Two holes, both in the same area at the top of the placket either side of it, no obvious snag.

My best guess is that the placket wasn't caught with quite enough fabric in the original seam, so over time and enough wears the edge simply gave way. That's the sort of thing that shows up years later, long after the shirt was made, in the spot that gets the most tension. But I'm guessing. Sometimes fabric just wears through and there's no story to it.

WANT TO TRY THIS YOURSELF

Three things:

Use a stretch thread on knit fabric. Use a long needle if you have one — the extra length makes the small picking-up motion easier to control than a short sharp.

Don't pull tight. Ease the edges together and check the right side often. A repair you can barely see beats a strong one that puckers.

Ten minutes, start to finish, and he's got his shirt back. This is the kind of thing I do all the time — more of it here — and it's almost always faster than anyone expects.