A Quick Mend

If you are like me, you go through a box of leather work gloves a year.  I despise throwing away a pair of gloves that has only one or two fingers worn through.  But I love reusing things that I didn't throw out.  I also love something I picked up at a fabric store for some forgotten reason some years back: Liquid Stitch.  Near as I can tell, it's water based air curing liquid latex.  It works terrifically well and has no order.  It's also waterproof and washable once dry.

Tonight, after the kids were in bed, I sat down with a pair of sharp scissors, one sacrificial glove that was the worst of the lot, and started cutting patches of leather to mend the other gloves that were worn but in still usable shape.

My apologies for the poor photo.  The new LED lighting in the basement is fine for reading but not great for taking pictures.  From the one glove at the bottom (missing three fingers now) I patched the five above by cutting off fingers, removing stitching and then shaping ready-fit patch work.  All you need to do is then run a bead of glue around the underside perimeter of the patch (the rough side of the leather) and press it into place.  It dries fully in 24 hours and sets up in seconds to a holding tack.

I guess it was roughly 12 minutes of effort and it saved me $30 or so in replacement gloves. The glove on the far right has been done like this before with some old shoe leather.  It's the heavy insulated glove I use for tending the wood stove.  It sees the most use of the lot and when it's worn, a quick burn is your first warning.  Better to patch that one up sooner I think.