June 30, 2022 Update: T-shirt repair using this method is yet holding stiff! This isn't a shirt I wear everyday, but it has been washed and worn several times since this original mail service in February 2022. I hope you have the same results as I have had.

The other day I paused to straighten my shirt as I was running at the door and somehow one of my fingernails of steel punched a hole right through my shirt. AGH! I still take no idea how it happened. Specially 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 arms. It didn't cost me a whole lot of coin. Information technology isn't necessarily my favorite of all favorites. Still. It was the principle of the matter that a footling, teeny tiny pigsty should not be the end of this story.

t-shirt holes and ready for fixing
There are times when mending with a needle and thread or a sewing machine is the best course of action. Probably 97% of the fourth dimension. Unless you are me and 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 Run up comes to the rescue and here's how to fix a tear in a shirt without sewing.

See that itty bitty hole?

tiny holes in t shirts front
Y'all'll want to make sure you plough your garment inside out and slide a cutting board or piece of cardboard betwixt the garment layers. You lot don't want to glue the front of your shirt to the back. That would exist an entirely different tutorial.

Then dab a little scrap of glue around the edges of hole and then using your fingers or tweezers y'all'll want to shut the gap in the textile. You don't desire to overlap the peak and lesser of the rip, you just want to fuse the top of the rip back to the bottom of the rip. I needed two hands for this part, so I apologize for the lack of dramatically graphic pictures showing this highly elaborate fusing process. *sarcasm alert*

no-sew t-shirt repair by hand
Now, when it dries, which is why you want to put the majority of the glue on the underside of the garment, in that location will exist a little smudge of "dried glue area." It's more pronounced here because information technology was on black fabric. On white fabric, information technology will be much more than discreet. I've found information technology'south slightly meliorate afterward a washing.

If yous have any areas that didn't fuse together, y'all'll need to add together a footling bit more glue to that expanse and repeat the process.
no-sew shirt2
This is the reverse side. That little speck is all that you tin see. When I wear the garment, it's non going to be noticeable at all.

Is information technology perfect? No, of course not. A lot of the success of this technique is going to depend on how careful yous were applying the glue, how big the rip was, etc. I've merely ever done this with small rips in t-shirts. I'1000 not certain that it would work with jeans or a button-up shirt, for example.
no-sew shirt1Now, how long does it last? Ah, the one thousand thousand dollar question. Showtime of all, the shirt was already ruined, correct? And then, any additional use out of it is clearly a bonus at this point.

However, I've used Liquid Stitch in this fashion a scattering of times. On the concluding t-shirt rip that I stock-still this way, well, I'm nevertheless wearing it and I've had that shirt for over five years. Information technology's survived countless washings and wearings so its a most washable fabric glue. Perhaps I'm the Liquid Sew Whisperer, merely I think they probably just have a great textile glue.

So, this is my happy tip for not letting a t-shirt rip get the terminal word! Let me know if yous have any success trying information technology.

P.Southward. The Liquid Stitch folks take no inkling who I am. I just like their glue. Over and out.

P.P.S. I establish my Liquid Stitch at my local arts and crafts/cloth store, only I've besides linked to it on Amazon in this mail. Over and out. Again.