This time around on Jill of All Trades, I show you how I repaired the lightweight down that I work out in all the time.

Because I work out in it so much, the fabric has started to wear away near some of the seams, or near the zippers on the pockets.  On a down jacket, it’s a problem because one there is a hole in the fabric, the feathers start coming out.  I’ve lost enough feathers that it has started to affect the warmth of the jacket.

For the seam down the sleeve, I decide that I could just take the seam in just a tiny bit and that would close up the holes.  You have to make sure that you have enough extra room in the sleeve to be able to do this.  I definitely did, and I only took the seam in a tiny bit.  That repair was super easy.

The next repair was an attempt to keep the feathers from coming out near the pocket zippers.  For that, I had to use a zipper foot on my sewing machine.  That let me sew closer to the zipper than a normal presser foot would.  I got as close to the zipper as possible, while still catching the edge of the fabric.  This is not the greatest looking repair but it’s certainly passable for a jacket that I only use for utility purposes (working out, yard work, etc.)  If it gets me even a couple more years of use out of this jacket, that’s a win.

The other sewing tip that I showed this time is how to use a double-needle needle to sew two perfectly spaced rows of stitching at the same time.  This is something that is done on a lot of fine knits and tech fabrics. 

To do this, you will need 2 spools of thread feeding into your machine.  My machine, which is certainly not super-high tech, has a spot on top to insert a second peg to hold an additional spool of thread.  I didn’t want to buy an additional spool of thread, so I just filled an extra bobbin and used that as my second spool on top of the machine.  I used a single bobbin in the base of the machine, as I would any other time.

I threaded both of the top threads through the machine as I normally would.  When I got to the double-needle, I threaded one thread through one needle and the second thread through the other.  Make sure that the base plate on your machine has a slot wide enough to accommodate both needles.  If your machine can do a zig-zag stitch, which it should be able to do, you should be fine.

Once your machine is set up and threaded, you should be good to go.  You might wat to do a test run on a scrap of fabric, first.  You may need to make some tension adjustments to get it exactly as you want it.  After that, you should be good to go!