Patching Cotton Sail

[floydvoid]

Hello, it’s getting warmer and the wind is blowing.

At last years assembly I bought a leg o mutton sail with narrow panels and straight stitching. I have to patch a few holes but I am forgetting the techniques I researched the last time I patched a sail.

What’s the best way to patch small holes in a cotton sail? Darn them like a sock?

I patched a larger hole- I double hemmed the cotton bed sheet patch and hemmed two sides of the hole, then stitched perimeter of the patch and then perimeter of the hole.
I think I’ll single hem the next patch and just see around the perimeter of the hole to keep it from pulling at fibers.
Am I following the right plan?

-Ryan

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

The ideal patch for any hole bigger than a dime would be a rectangular patch with similar weight fabric, with its yarns orientated the same directions as the base fabric and using lap feld (also called French Feld) seams all around. These would be double-stitched with two lines of straight stitches. It can also be done as a fake-feld seam where the pieces both have a tucked hem about 1/2" wide but the folds don't interlock. One is just stuck on top of the other with the hems hidden inside. Aiming the weave in the same directions as the weave of the original fabric is critical. It allows the patch to stretch (or not) in the same directions as the original cloth, rather than pull funny and distort the area. The best patch fabric would generally be from a high thread count Egyptian cotton pillow case or bed sheet in a plain weave (looks the same on both sides, not shiny on one side and dull on the other).

This is a Lap-feld seam. This one was a major seam joining large sections, so it is a bit wider and triple-stitched, but the main reason we use them is that it tucks all the raw cut edges inside the seam, so there is no raveling and it really locks the two pieces of cloth together.