Natural disasters, emergency situations, and the common clothing mishap can all require the benefits from your survival sewing kit. From needing stitches to patching your ripped pants, keeping a sewing kit in your EDC or Go bag won’t be wasted.
Why is it Important to Keep a Survival Sewing Kit?
Sewing, as a skill, dates back to the beginning of mankind. Although back those days they had to use leaves and peeled apart bark to resemble thread. As tiny as a sewing kit may be these days, it has some of the most beneficial instruments that can save you in the case of a serious accident. The most basic reason why sewing kits are important is in the case of an emergency, as you can’t be fully prepared for the random emergency.
Although a sewing kit might not be a defensive weapon, this secondary gear definitely comes in handy for various uses. For example, in a situation where it is storming and your tent gets punctured by a branch, no amount of hunting skills or duct tape will make it seem as if the tear never happened. This is where the sewing kit will come in handy. Tightly sewing up the tear will create a tight seal, for added security you could go ahead and use that duct tape to ensure waterproofing. Another example is in the case of a deep cut. Having a needle and thread allows for battlefield-style stitches to be completed.
Although most people argue over the importance of owning manual sewing kits, seeing that an electronic one does the work better. One, the power supply cannot always be trusted and two, mechanical sewing machine cannot suture your wounds.
Choosing Your Survival Sewing Kit
The most important factor to consider when choosing a survival sewing kit is your personal situation. What suits one person might not be suitable for another, and it is very important to put this into consideration.
Nevertheless, there are some other general prepping factors to consider when choosing the right sewing kit.
Lightweight And Easy to Carry
Survival sewing kits are of utmost importance during emergencies, which means they should be readily available at all times. Having too bulky or too heavy of a sewing kit can make it difficult to fit in your pack. They sell anything from tackle box-like kits to thin little pocket kits that could easily sit in your pants pocket.
Fully Loaded vs The Necessities
Depending on the way you plan to carry and use your sewing kit you can go with a fully loaded sewing kit or a basic pocket kits.
Basic thin kits normally include 5-8 pre-threaded needles with basic color threads packed in a thin plastic case. These pocket kits can help with stitches or small-to-medium patchwork jobs.
Fully loaded kits can include all kinds of tools like different sized needles, spools of thread, thimble, waterproof patches, fabric scissors, threaders, measuring tape, clips, zippers, buttons, safety pins, seam ripper, pins, and more. A slightly larger sewing kit can help with larger sewing jobs, like fixing that tent we mentioned earlier, fixing clothes, stitching wounds, making a fishing nets, and more.
Choosing the right number of supplies should be tailored to your desired level of preparedness and endangerment.
Thread Weight
Thread comes in all kinds of material and sizes. Considering the type of thread and its ‘weight’ (thickness) should be based off how you expect to use it. When sewing clothes, you will want standard sewing thread. If fixing a tent, a more plastic-y or thicker thread might be beneficial. No matter how good the rest of the instruments in the kit are, without a good thread, you might not be able to get much sewing done.
The Basic Survival Sewing Kit
Like every kit, there are a few basic items that are desired.
Needle
This is one of the most important parts of a survival sewing kit. Without a needle, a sewing kit would be mostly useless. Needles come in different sizes and thickness. Having at least 3 different gauges is preferred for a survival sewing kit.
Thread
The thread works in hand with the needle. Thread also comes in various sizes, but in a survival scenario the most effective ones are the slightly thicker threads. Having heavier thread allows for multi-use, handling stitches or fabric patches.
Scissors
While scissors are not 100% necessary, a small pair of fabric scissors would make things a bit easier. The main role of scissors in a survival sewing kit is for cutting the thread after stitches or closing the tear.
In emergency scenarios without scissors, alternate methods for separating the thread could be a lighter, key, pocketknife, etc.
Buttons
Having a few buttons as part of your survival kit can be beneficial. Losing fasteners such as buttons and zippers during disaster or emergency situations is not uncommon. Having replacements can make getting through the remaining disaster a little more comfortably.
Waterproof Container
Finally, your kit or container should be waterproof, this way it can withstand disasters and emergencies like hurricanes or falling into a body of water. While it wouldn’t be the worst to let some water or other liquids into your sewing kit, keeping the thread and needles dry should be a key goal. Getting water or other liquids inside your sewing kit could cause tools to rust, could contaminate the thread, and using a tiny wet needle could prove rather difficult.
Other Tools
The above items make for a nice basic kit. However, having additional supplies wouldn’t hurt. Other additional tools that could help include razor blades, marking pencils, patches, shoe gear, tape measurer, fabric tape, Kevlar thread, seam ripper, and so on.
Sewing Kit Use Cases
Despite the usefulness of a survival sewing kit, it won’t be useful in all situations. For example, a scraped knee or a ripped sleeve isn’t quite an emergency.
However, there are so many emergency situations that call for the use of a sewing kit, and its tools.
Ripped Fabric
When in survival mode, there is nothing more frustrating than having ripped clothing, shelter, or shoes. Even on regular days, a ripping your pants, or your shoe falling apart will have you flustered. Especially when there is no option for you to change your outfit. This is where the magic of having a simple needle and thread on-hand comes in handy.
You can patch up a rip or tear quickly with the use of a needle and thread found in your survival sewing kit. It is important to note that although the sewing kits are termed ‘survival’, it does not always have to involve life-threatening situations. Moving through our day-to-day life is survival enough, right?
First Aid
A sewing kit can also be used in administering emergency first aid. This form of use may not be for everyone, but it could save a life. In the case of a tear, deep cut, or wide wound on a person’s body during a disaster, the needle and thread can be used to stitch up the injury.
Missing Fasteners
Similar to ripped clothing, are missing fasteners, like buttons and zippers. One of the must-have items in a typical sewing kit are buttons. It is not uncommon for a button to go missing or a zipper to break when in a survival situation.
With the aid of a simple needle, thread, and fastener found in the sewing kit, you can easily sew another button on or craftly add a zipper/sew a closure in place of a zipper.
Netting
In a survival situation, having ripped netting could mean dinner getting away. While most netting is maid using monofilament or other plastic-y material, fixing a rip can be done with even basic sewing thread.
While it may take some time and patience, you can use most strings to fashion a fishing net. While cotton thread won’t last forever and would be easier for fish to try to bite through. But in a SHTF scenario it could come in handy to feed you and the family.
