⚡ Quick Answer: How to Sew a Hole
To sew a hole, first sort it by cause: a snag is worked back with a blunt needle and no cutting, a split seam is re-sewn along its original stitch line, a small worn hole in a knit is darned, and missing fabric is patched from the inside. Turn the garment inside out, back the area with fusible knit interfacing if the cloth is thin, then close the hole with a backstitch for wovens, a loose zigzag or darning grid for knits, and a ladder stitch for a seam gap. Press it on the wrong side over a towel and pull test it gently before the garment goes back in the wash.
A hole in a favourite jumper is not one problem, it is four. A pulled thread that has not broken, a seam that has let go, a patch of knit worn thin until a small round hole appeared, and a genuine gap where fabric is missing all look similar on the front of the garment and all need a different repair. Most instructions hand the reader one stitch and hope, which is why the mend looks fine for a week and then opens again in the wash.
Working out how to sew a hole properly starts before the needle comes out. Sort the damage, check whether the cloth around it can hold a stitch at all, and back it from behind before you close it. Do those three things and a ten minute repair will outlast the garment.
Why Most Hole Repairs Fail Inside Three Washes
A repair fails for one of three reasons, and none of them is the stitch the tutorial taught. The thread was wrong for the cloth, the cloth around the hole was already too thin to grip a stitch, or the mend was sewn tight across a fabric that needs to stretch. All three show up in the same way, as small tears radiating out from the end of the mend, usually after the first wash.
Never cut a pulled thread. Tease it back to the wrong side and the hole closes itself.
The wash is the test, not the mirror. A mend that looks invisible in the bathroom light and has been sewn without stretch in a knit will ladder the moment the drum turns it, because the cloth around it stretches and the stitches do not.
| What goes wrong | Why | What prevents it |
|---|---|---|
| The mend tears out at the ends | Too few stitches past the hole, or thread that is stronger than the cloth | Work at least 1 cm past each end of the damage, and match the thread fibre to the garment |
| New small holes appear around the mend | The cloth was worn thin and the stitches pulled through it | Back the area with fusible knit interfacing before stitching |
| The mend puckers into a star | Stitches pulled tight | Pull the thread until it lies flat, no further, and press after |
| A knitted garment will not stretch at the mend | Straight stitches in a knit | A stitch that can stretch, or a looser tension than feels right |
Step 1: Sort the Hole by What Caused It
Hold the garment up and look at the edges of the damage. Their shape tells you the cause, and the cause decides the repair.
If you can see daylight through the cloth around the hole, the hole will come back. Back it first.
| What you see | What caused it | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| One loop of yarn dragged to the surface, cloth gathered round it | A snag. The yarn is not broken | Ease the cloth back into shape and work the loop to the wrong side with a blunt needle. Nothing is cut |
| Clean edges and a visible row of stitch marks | A split seam, failed on a narrow allowance or rotten thread | Re-sewn along the original stitch line, overlapping 1 cm past each end |
| Small, round, with a thin rim, always where cloth rubs | Wear. The fibres have gone, nothing has torn | A darning grid over a backing, because the rim is weaker than it looks |
| Ragged edges you can see through | Missing fabric, from a moth, a burn or a nail | A patch pinned behind, stitched into sound cloth 5 mm outside the damage |
There is one more case worth naming, because mending instructions rarely do: damage in a high stress zone where the whole area has gone. The crotch of jeans, the underarm of a shirt, the seat of trousers. Sewing a small patch into cloth that is failing all around it buys weeks, so plan on a larger patch, or on cutting the garment for rags.
Step 2: Test Whether the Cloth Will Hold a Stitch
Before you thread anything, hold the garment against a window with the hole between you and the light. Around the hole you will either see solid cloth, or a faint halo where the fabric has thinned.
A halo means the weave has lost most of its fibres in that ring. Stitches placed in it will pull straight through, and the repair will spread outwards in a star. The halo is the single best predictor of whether a mend survives, and it takes three seconds to check.
The thumbnail test does the same job in poor light. Push your thumbnail against the cloth next to the hole. If it gives easily and the weave opens, the area is finished as a stitching surface. If it holds like the rest of the garment, you can sew into it.
When the halo is there, you have two options. Back the whole area with a fusible knit interfacing and stitch into that instead, which is the repair that works for most worn knitwear, or work a patch that covers the halo entirely and is sewn down in sound cloth beyond it. What you must not do is sew into the thin ring and hope.
Step 3: Match the Needle and the Thread to the Cloth
Needle sizing confuses people because there are two systems in one sewing box. Hand sewing needles run from 1, the heaviest, to 12, the finest, so a larger number is a finer hand needle. Machine needles run from 60/8 up to 110/18 and the figures mean hundredths of a millimetre, so a larger number is a heavier machine needle. Neither number is a gauge, and treating the two as one system is how a reader ends up with a needle far too heavy for silk.
Forgotten in the shop, the practical version of that is short. A size 9 or 10 sharp for shirting and fine cotton, a size 7 or 8 sharp for most woven garments, a size 5 or 3 for denim and canvas by hand, and a ballpoint hand needle for any knit, because its rounded tip slides between the loops instead of spearing them. Thread matters more than the needle, and the rule there is to match the fibre rather than the colour: cotton thread on cotton and linen, polyester all purpose on synthetics and blends, woolly nylon on leggings and swimwear, and a strand of the garment’s own yarn on knitwear where the mend will be seen.
The one rule that costs people their repairs: polyester thread on a wool jumper. Polyester is stronger than the wool, so under load the thread wins and the cloth breaks along the stitch line. Use wool or a soft cotton on wool, and accept that it will wear out before the jumper does.
| Fabric | Needle and thread | Stitch |
|---|---|---|
| Cotton shirt, linen | Size 9 sharp with cotton thread | Backstitch along the line |
| Jersey, t-shirt, leggings | Ballpoint size 9 with polyester or woolly nylon | Loose zigzag or darning grid |
| Wool jumper, cardigan | Blunt darning needle with matching wool | Darning grid, never polyester |
| Denim, canvas | Size 3 to 5 sharp by hand, or machine 90/14 | Backstitch, then a patch |
| Silk, chiffon | Size 10 or 12 sharp with silk or fine polyester | Tiny running stitches |
Cut the working thread no longer than 50 cm, roughly two and a half times the widest part of the hole if that is shorter. A longer thread rubs against itself on every pass, goes fuzzy, knots, and thins where it bends.
Step 4: Back the Hole Before You Stitch It
This is the step that separates a repair that lasts from one that reappears, and it is the step no mending tutorial shows. Every hole has a rim of weakened cloth, and stitching into that rim is what fails.
For knits, cut a square of fusible knit interfacing 2.5 cm larger than the hole all round, place it on the wrong side with the adhesive facing the fabric, and press it for ten seconds with a warm iron and no steam. Let it cool before you touch it. The knit interfacing fuses, holds the loosened loops still, and stretches with the garment, so the darn has something to bite into.
For wovens, a patch does the same job. Cut it 2.5 cm larger than the hole on every side, in the same weight of cloth, and pin it to the wrong side with the grain running the same way as the garment. Wovens do not need the fusible.
Two cautions. Press the iron down and lift it, rather than sliding it, because a sliding iron drags knit out of shape. And never fuse anything to a fabric you have not tested, especially a coated waterproof or a pile fleece, where the heat can flatten the surface for good. Test on the inside of a hem first.
Step 5: Close It With the Stitch the Hole Deserves
With the hole sorted and the area backed, the stitch is almost an afterthought. Work from the wrong side where you can, anchor with two small stitches on top of each other rather than a knot you will later feel, and finish with two more.
A worn hole in a knit is darned. Work rows of small stitches across the hole, 3 mm apart, starting and finishing in sound cloth beyond the backing. Then work a second set at right angles, weaving over and under the first, until you cannot see through the hole but the patch is still level with the surface. A darning mushroom or anything rounded underneath stops you catching the back of the garment.
A split seam is re-sewn, not darned. Turn the garment inside out, line up the original stitch marks, and backstitch from 1 cm before the split to 1 cm past it, so the new thread overlaps the old on both sides. Leave the seam allowance flat and press it open.
A small tear in a woven is backstitched. Bring the needle up 3 mm from the edge, take a 3 mm stitch backwards through both sides, and continue. Keep the two edges level rather than overlapping them, because an overlap presses into a hard ridge.
A gap in a seam that has lost its allowance takes a ladder stitch. Work from the inside, taking a 2 mm bite from each side directly opposite, and pull up gently every four or five stitches. The thread closes the gap from within and disappears into the seam.
Missing fabric takes a patch. Pin it behind the hole, right side facing the wrong side of the garment, and stitch 5 mm outside the damaged edge all the way round with small running stitches, then darn across any loose flaps so they lie flat on the patch. A patch stitched right on the torn edge will pull out, which is why the stitching line sits in sound cloth.
Step 6: Press It, Then Try to Pull It Apart
Press the finished mend from the wrong side over a folded towel, which keeps the stitches from being flattened into the right side. Use the heat setting for the fibre, no steam on a knit, and press rather than iron. Then turn it over and look at the front.
The pull test is the step that tells you whether you have finished. Hold the garment on either side of the mend and tug gently along the grain, then across it. What should happen is nothing. What tells you the mend is too tight is the cloth puckering into a star at the ends of the stitching, and what tells you it is too loose is daylight reappearing between the stitches. Both are fixed by unpicking 2 cm and working that section again, looser or tighter.
Then wash the garment as you normally would. A mend is not finished until it has survived one wash, so put the garment in the machine rather than leaving it in the mending pile, where good repairs go to be forgotten.
What Each Fabric Needs
Fabric decides three things at once: how big a margin of sound cloth you need, whether the mend should stretch, and how visible it will be. There is no single way to sew a hole that covers a sock and a silk blouse, whatever the one technique guides say.
| Garment | What usually fails | Repair and the margin it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Jersey t-shirt, leggings | A small round hole where the knit rubs | Fusible backing plus a loose darning grid, 2.5 cm past the damage |
| Wool jumper | A worn patch under the arm or at the cuff | Darning grid in matching wool, 2.5 cm past the damage |
| Denim jeans | A blowout at the knee or the pocket corner | Underside patch and rows of machine stitching, 4 cm past the damage |
| Cotton shirt | A split seam or a torn pocket corner | Backstitch along the original line, 1 cm past the damage |
| Silk blouse | A pull or a small tear | Fine fusible behind, then tiny running stitches, 1.5 cm past the damage |
| Socks | A hole at the heel | Woolly nylon darn, 1 cm past the damage |
Two of these are worth stating plainly. Denim needs a wider margin than anything else because the cloth is stiff and the load across a knee is high, so 4 cm of stitching into sound cloth rather than a neat ring around the hole. Socks should be darned with woolly nylon rather than cotton, because a cotton darn simply wears through again at the same spot.
Here is the whole fault list in one place, and the one item that has to be done before anything else is the light test, because every other fix is wasted on cloth that cannot hold a stitch.
| Fault | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The mend tears out at both ends | Stitches stopped at the edge of the hole | Work 1 cm past each end, into sound cloth |
| New holes appear around the mend | Thin cloth pulled through by the stitches | Back the area with fusible knit interfacing and start again |
| The repair looks like a star | Thread pulled tight | Ease the tension and press, or unpick and rework looser |
| The garment will not stretch at the mend | Straight stitches in a knit | Rework with a loose darning grid or a zigzag |
| The patch edge frays | Patch stitched on the torn edge instead of beyond it | Stitch at least 5 mm outside the damage |
| The mend shows as a hard ridge | Edges overlapped instead of butted | Rework with the edges level, then press |
| The seam splits again beside the mend | New thread not overlapping the old | Overlap the original stitching by 1 cm at each end |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sew a hole without a sewing machine?
Yes, and for most holes hand sewing is better than the machine. A backstitch along a seam, a darning grid in a knit and a ladder stitch in a gap all do the job with a needle, thread and something rounded to work over. The machine wins on denim and on any repair that needs rows of stitching across a large patch.
Should I cut the loose threads around a hole before mending?
Trim the frayed ends that will not lie flat, but never cut a pulled thread that is still one piece. A snag can be worked back to the wrong side and the cloth closed around it. Cut it and you have created a hole where there was only a loop.
How do I stop a mend from tearing out in the wash?
Three things. Work at least 1 cm past each end of the damage into sound cloth, back thin areas with fusible knit interfacing, and match the thread fibre to the garment so the thread is not stronger than the cloth. Then pull test the mend before it goes in the machine.
Why does my repair pucker into a star?
The thread has been pulled tighter than the cloth wants to sit. Stitches should lie flat on the surface, not grip it. Unpick about 2 cm, work that section again with a lighter pull, and press it from the wrong side over a towel.
What is the best stitch for a hole in a knit?
A darning grid, with rows of small stitches one way and a second set woven over and under them the other way. It moves with the knit. A straight backstitch has no give, so the cloth either side of it tears at the first stretch.
Can I use dental floss or fishing line to mend?
No. Both are far stronger than any garment fabric, so under load they cut through the cloth instead of breaking. They also will not knot reliably. Any repair thread should be no stronger than the fibre it is holding.
What size needle should I use to sew a hole?
A size 9 or 10 sharp for shirtings and fine cotton, 7 or 8 for most wovens, 3 to 5 for denim by hand, and a ballpoint for any knit. Remember that hand needles run from 1, the heaviest, to 12, the finest, while machine needles run the other way, with the larger figure being the heavier needle.
How large does a hole have to be before it needs a patch?
Once the edges cannot be brought together without puckering, which is usually around 2 cm on a knit and 1 cm on a stiff woven. Anything where you can see through to the other side has missing fabric and needs a patch behind it, however small.
Should I mend jeans with a machine or by hand?
The machine, for anything across a knee or a pocket corner. Denim is stiff and takes high load, so a hand darn will not hold. Patch from the inside in matching denim, then sew rows of straight stitching across the hole in the thread colour of the denim, which is how the repair stays flat and nearly invisible.
When is a garment past mending?
When the cloth around the damage fails the light test across an area bigger than your hand, or when the same spot has been repaired twice. A third repair in the same place will fail sooner than the second, and the honest answer at that point is a different garment rather than another hour at the needle.
Conclusion
A hole is four problems wearing the same face. Diagnose it before you thread a needle.
Sort the damage by its cause, hold it to the light to see whether the cloth around it will hold a stitch, back the area so the stitches have something to bite into, close it with the stitch that matches the cloth, then press it and try to pull it apart. Keep the margin in sound cloth, match the thread fibre to the garment, and never cut a pulled thread.
Which garment in your mending pile has been waiting longest?
About This Guide
This guide was written from the mending done at the craftsing workshop, where a box of damaged garments is worked through every month and the failures are kept rather than thrown away, because a repair that opened again says more than one that held. The order of work, the stitch choices and the needle sizing follow the guides at Simply Sewing, wikiHow and Sewing Trip, which between them cover the stitches well and the diagnosis barely at all. The light test, the fusible backing rule, the needle numbering correction and the pull test were worked out at the bench and tested on a wool jumper, a jersey t-shirt and a pair of jeans before being written down. Mithu has taught mending for 15 years and keeps a jar of repairs that came back.
When the hole is in a seam that has to be restored rather than closed, how to use a sewing machine covers the machine settings that hold a seam. When the thread itself is what keeps failing, how to choose the right sewing thread matches fibre to cloth, and if you would rather cover a mend than hide it, how to embroider on knits turns the patch into the point.
All images in this article were created using AI.