Text and images below are reposted from Uppsala University Library’s website.
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The manuscript dates from the 14th century and it belonged to the monastic library at Vadstena Convent after its purchase in Konstanz in 1417.
The pages of the book are made of parchment and they show typical damage in the form of holes and tears that happened while the parchment was being made. Some time after the book was copied, the holes and tears have been mended artistically with silk of various colours, mainly in blanket stitch as used in embroidery.
The old mending is in good shape except for those parts which were sewn with black silk. The thread is so fragile that it disintegrates on touch.
During the project the black thread was subjected to colour analysis to find out which colouring agents had been used. The results showed that the black dye had been made with iron sulphate and tannin, which implies that the thread was dyed with iron filings and various plants that contain the tanning agent tannin e.g. oak apple and sumac leaves. The whole dyeing process is very acidic and if the wrong proportions of tannin and iron salt are used, sulphuric acid forms considerably accelerating the natural decomposition of the thread or material. In order to prevent the black parts disappearing completely they were treated with a glue that was applied as a spray mist. Some parts were stabilised with a thin silk gauze.
Since the conservation process the book can be handled without the breaking the black thread but it still has to be treated very gently with the respect due to a book of its age.
Filed under: fabric, leather, rubber | Tags: broken, cut, mended, sewn, stitched, torn
I wore this pair of sandals the whole 7 months I was in India. Pretty soon, the soles started wearing thin. I could feel pebbles through the soles. So, when these kids approached me at a train station and offered to repair them for me, I asked them to make an insert.
The insert fell out pretty quickly since it wasn’t sewn in properly, so in Vrindavan, I had this cobbler sew in a proper insert for the heel. Perfecto.
Eventually, that wore down too, and a cobbler in Bangalore sewed an entire new sole to the bottoms of the existing ones. New treads!
No photo of the last repair, but I had another Bangalorean cobbler tighten the strap that goes between your toes. 3 years later and they’re still a major component of my summer gear!
A friend said they are probably one of the only pairs of cobbled Airwalks in the world.
Filed under: fabric, wood | Tags: glued, lost, replaced, sewn, taped, torn, worn
A year and a half late …. (yikes)
I set up a “Repair Booth” at Heather’s awesome Barter Town project …
Makeshift cardboard button
Pocket hole
George actually broke his pencil and then handed it to me to repair. What?? I think I used glue and then prettied it up with yellow duct tape.
Redid part of Jackie’s seam.
Karen Barbé darned a prominent rip in her dress and then disguised the repair with embroidery. So beautiful!!
She wrote:
For mending this dress I have used traditional darning techniques as well as embroidery stitches (cross-stitch and running stitch). It was hard to decide how to do it because the rip was in such a conspicuous spot so I went for this “fantasy darning”, a mix of things. I didn’t want it to look too patched nor to show it’s actually mended. Now the sad thing is I have just found another rip next to the hem. Damn, this dress is disintegrating!”
Last week I saw Nina Katchedourian speak at Drew University. She has done some amazing repairs.
Spiderwebs (read more here):
Mushrooms (more here):
Repaired Things 
