June 30, 2022 Update: T-shirt repair using this method is still holding strong! This isn't a shirt I clothing everyday, but information technology has been done and worn several times since this original post in February 2022. I hope you take the same results as I take had.

The other day I paused to straighten my shirt equally I was running at the door and somehow one of my fingernails of steel punched a hole correct through my shirt. AGH! I still have no thought how it happened. Especially since I'1000 not sporting particularly long or pointy fingernails at the moment.

This is the shirt in question. A dressier version of a t-shirt because of that flare on the artillery. It didn't cost me a whole lot of money. It isn't necessarily my favorite of all favorites. Still. It was the principle of the matter that a little, teeny tiny hole should non exist the end of this story.

t-shirt holes and ready for fixing
At that place are times when mending with a needle and thread or a sewing machine is the all-time class of activeness. Probably 97% of the fourth dimension. Unless you are me then that falls back to oh, say, 65.3% of the time. Sometimes though, mending with thread just draws more attending to the mend. In that instance, my friend Liquid Stitch comes to the rescue and here'southward how to fix a tear in a shirt without sewing.

See that itty fragmentary hole?

tiny holes in t shirts front
You'll want to make sure you plow your garment within out and slide a cut board or piece of cardboard between the garment layers. Y'all don't want to glue the front of your shirt to the dorsum. That would be an entirely dissimilar tutorial.

Then dab a fiddling chip of mucilage around the edges of hole and and then using your fingers or tweezers you'll want to shut the gap in the fabric. You don't want to overlap the top and bottom of the rip, y'all only want to fuse the top of the rip back to the bottom of the rip. I needed two hands for this part, and so I apologize for the lack of dramatically graphic pictures showing this highly elaborate fusing procedure. *sarcasm warning*

no-sew t-shirt repair by hand
Now, when it dries, which is why you desire to put the majority of the gum on the underside of the garment, at that place will be a piffling smudge of "dried gum area." It'southward more pronounced hither because it was on black cloth. On white fabric, it will be much more unimposing. I've found it's slightly amend later on a washing.

If you have any areas that didn't fuse together, yous'll need to add together a little bit more glue to that area and echo the process.
no-sew shirt2
This is the contrary side. That little speck is all that you can see. When I wear the garment, it's not going to exist noticeable at all.

Is it perfect? No, of course non. A lot of the success of this technique is going to depend on how careful you lot were applying the glue, how large the rip was, etc. I've just ever done this with pocket-sized rips in t-shirts. I'm not sure that it would work with jeans or a button-upwardly shirt, for example.
no-sew shirt1Now, how long does it last? Ah, the one thousand thousand dollar question. First of all, the shirt was already ruined, right? So, whatsoever additional use out of it is conspicuously a bonus at this point.

Yet, I've used Liquid Sew together in this way a scattering of times. On the last t-shirt rip that I stock-still this way, well, I'm still wearing it and I've had that shirt for over 5 years. It's survived countless washings and wearings so its a most washable fabric glue. Perhaps I'thou the Liquid Stitch Whisperer, but I think they probably merely have a swell fabric glue.

Then, this is my happy tip for not letting a t-shirt rip get the final word! Let me know if you have whatsoever success trying it.

P.South. The Liquid Stitch folks accept no clue who I am. I just like their glue. Over and out.

P.P.S. I plant my Liquid Sew together at my local craft/fabric store, but I've also linked to it on Amazon in this post. Over and out. Again.