Have a pair of nice heavy deer skin work gloves that I wore almost all summer. They started developing holes about a month and a half ago.
Since I was welding that day, it meant finger burns (yes we had dedicated welding gloves, but generally I don’t bother with them, they’re a heavy leather gauntlet that allows no dexterity at all.)
My jobsite fix that day was a quick wrap (double layer glue to glue on the holes so it didn’t stick to me!) of gorilla tape over the finger tips.
I gotta say I’m impressed, after a month of work, and you have to remember I’ve been working in a crawl space most of the time so its not just work wear, but crawling wear too, that tape was scuffed and a bit softer, but still stuck, solid, holeless… I HATE duct tape with a passion because it never stays on anything even duct work, but this stuff was great!
But anyway, 3 more holes later and I grabbed a new pair of gloves. I have no idea what the old ones cost, they were a gift, the second pair out of a two pack a friend got. And I can’t shop where they came from(costco) so a direct replacement is impossible.
But the replacement I got at Home Depot was $25 a pair.
I’m sure the Costco ones probably cost less than that, and about 6 months on a pair before they wear out isn’t bad for good quality, real leather, all leather gloves.
But at prices like that I’d still like to prolong their life if possible. And besides, they’re broken in, already stained– don’t have to worry what I get on them, they fit me, and are comfortable as all get out now… I’ve been missing them!
With socks its called darning. Maybe only on knit socks. Ive been saying I’m darning gloves. But they’re not knit, and darning might not apply even to knit gloves… lol.
So, thus, I sat down with some scrap leather, needle and thread, and have been slowly fixing them in my spare time the last few days.
This has worked well so far, a couple seams resewn, and one finger tip I cut out the holed area and patched. Some of it I’ve just whip stiched on the outside, some thing I’ve turned them inside out to have the seams on the inside like original.
It has ironically been kinda hard on my hands. For a while now any hand sewing I do, or similar work that takes a good grip on small tools, and fine motor skills, has made my hands go numb while doing it.
Add to that some muscle damage and inflammation that I have right now in my shoulders/arm pits and lower arms that has been doing a carpal tunnel like effect of a piched nerve or restrictions in blood flow; making my hands tingling or numb over most of the past week anyway;
It makes this extremely slow, somewhat frustrating, and sort of painful to do.
But at any rate, I’m enjoying it, it improves my sewing, saves some gloves, and fills some time.
I still have one big hole and one small one to patch, and two seams to re-close.
Alaskan, Adventurer, Engineer. 