Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Fixing a Fraying Sleeping Bag

Why sleeping bag ,Why?
 

There is no modern noise around; instead there is the hum of insects, almost like surround sound.  The fire is built high and warm in the pit. My kid’s faces are sticky from smores.  We have family prayer then tuck the kids into their sleeping bags as I read to them out of the current family novel.   Then my husband comments on a rip in one of our girl’s sleeping bag.  I pause briefly in my reading to lean over and look at the rip. 

At first I am only as annoyed as someone who drops their pencil on the ground when they need to be taking notes in school.  I continue to read to the kids till they fall asleep.  I enjoy the different kind of noise that camping is for our family.

When we get home we start cleaning things then putting them away.  The sleeping bag and some quilts go into the mending basket for fixing.  As I pull out the sleeping bag, I again wonder; why do companies usually make their sleeping bags out of such breakable fabric?  I would use this kind of fabric as a liner in a men’s suit vest, not a sleeping bag that needs to take a beating.  It could be too costly to do a better fabric, or the company picked it because it can if cleaned up quickly when it gets wet it stays dry.  It’s certainly not because it does a good job at keeping in body heat.  Maybe it’s because it is flame resistant. I am not sure of the reason, I have thought about it (it’s been like a mosquito bite in my brain) and I cannot figure out what the designer is thinking in using such a material.  The material frays easily, badly, it literally comes apart at the seams. It’s a material that is meant to be puncture as little as possible and treated gently. 

Despite my in-ability to figure out the reasons behind the materials that were chosen to construct the sleeping bag. I still have to deal with the results.  How to I keep “that” fabric from fraying again if I stitch it back together? Here is what I came up with to fix the sleeping bag rip.

Step #1
  
I took pink thread and loosely stitched down the rips.

Step #2
I took school glue and smeared the glue on the all the seams spreading it out ½ inch wide on each side of the seam and let it dry.

Step #3
 
I took ribbon from a reed hat that was broken beyond repair. I picked the hot glue off the ribbon.

Step #4
    
When the glue was dry I pinned the pink ribbon over the frayed seam.

Step#5
I stitched down the ribbon. Making sure to have my seams inside of where I had glued. I did this in hopes that the now stiff fabric would not fray from the stitches.



Materials
Pink thread- left over from someone else’s project    0.00
Pink ribbon- from a broken hat                                    0.00
Glue- from home school supplies                                    0.00
Total Cost
                                                                                               0.00

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