wonderweb

****Wonderweb****

Wonderweb now seems to be the generic term for iron on hemming tape. The easy way to sew a hem up without actually sewing. Wonderweb is easy to use and produces lovely seamless results.
It comes on a roll and looks like white spiders web, which you can stretch and play with for absolutely seconds.
Its so easy to use that even I can get it right (mostly), You just turn up the hem where you want it (you could be arsey and pin it first…but I like to take chances in life) then iron hem in place, place a strip of wonderweb in-between the hem, cover with a damp cloth and iron (with a hot iron with the steam turned off) for a couple of minutes…and that’s it - done.
Its available in most supermarkets and even on ebay...it usually cost under £1 for a few of meters of tape.

****Crap Mother****

This product was made to make a crap mum like me look like a fabby mum, its not that I don’t love my kids….I do, its just that I am crap at all the stuff I am supposed to be good at.
I often am amazed and rather jealous of the other mums who turn up at school with their perfectly turned out children who are in possession of ALL the things they need for the day….. Whereas we turn up.
Some days I astound myself and we have homework, water bottles, fruit and p.e kits….then someone bursts my smug bubble and reminds me about the form I was supposed to have brought in the day before or the piano book or the dance kit…or…my son has his underpants on over his trousers….or..or….my crap motherness is endless.

****Tinkerbelle****

What has my crapness got to do with wonderweb I hear you ask…..well it’s the wonderweb that is my salvation a couple of times a year……my kid’s school keep having these “dress up as a Victorian/Edwardian/Favourite character from a book/green thing/Big red nose thing/some other bizarre thing the batty head teacher has thought of” day.
The first time this happened my daughter Amy came home from school and told me that she had to go to school the following day dressed as her favourite book character.
I had the usual wobbly about the short notice, then phoned another mum to ensure that this was correct…putting myself in the usual position of being reminded of my crapness when I was told yes this was correct…did I not get the letter last week? Eeek….upon checking school bag…yes there was the letter.
So we screamed out to the car to rush to the Disney shop….now this was the point where daughter told me that the outfit had to be homemade…..aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggg crapmum’s worst nightmare.
I asked Amy who she would like to go as…..Tinkerbelle….actually her mum’s fave character (lets hope this is the only thing she has inherited from me)
So being said crap mum I couldn’t think where to get material from locally at 4.30pm so off we flew to Dunelm where we managed to buy some green curtain material, green net, wonderweb, sew on Velcro , glitter glue, wool, elastic , ribbon and stick on stars.
Well I started by getting daughter to lie down on material whilst I drew round her for the shape and size of dress then cut it out…..then drove back to Dunelm for more material as I had forgotten that my daughter is actually 3 dimensional……
I eventually got the size right and proceeded to the ironing board…..this was the easiest part of it……
I folded the material where I wanted the hem to be, ironed it in a sort of straight line then lifted up the turned over bit, laid a strip of super duper mummy saving wonderweb, folded the hem back over it, placed a damp cloth on top and ironed over it for a couple of minutes and voila instant sewingless hem.
I botched and bungled my way through the rest of the out fit and by 3am I had finally got the best Tinkerbelle outfit this crap mum was ever going to achieve.
Next morning we bounced up the school steps (not even caring that the kids had no water bottles or fruit) bursting with that hahaha look I am not such a crapmum after all swagger…only to find all the other kids in Disney outfits…..
I asked the teacher why as I thought the outfits were supposed to be homemade…oh no she said…they didn’t need to be….I looked at Amy for an answer…who just smiled at me and said that hers was the best outfit ever…..so I walked away on air…..wonderweb supermum…she even still thought the same after a day of her dress falling down every 10 minutes…..

Wonderweb has also come to my rescue on various other “dress as “ days….and it was strong enough to hold in a heavy piece of wire in the wonder webbed hem of my daughters Edwardian dress.

****Do’s****

Wonderweb is great for a temporary sewing job without the actual sewing and can be used for a variety of things such as
Fabulous super duper Kids outfits for school (ok Jess you can stop bragging about your supermumness now)
Trouser/skirt hems (my sons school trousers only seem to last a month before a hole appears in the knee so is a waste of time trying to sew them)
Curtain hems….(cheap thin tacky curtains from Ikea…although I think you can obtain super duper strength wonderweb should you wish to try and ruin your £1000 curtains instead of taking them to be taken up professionally)
And pretty much anything else that needs a hem on it except……

****Don’ts****

Amy had outgrown her swimming costume (actually she had long outgrown it…but the thought of transferring all 15 of her swim badges to the new one forced me to pretend she wasn’t my daughter as she waddled up the side of the pool with her cosy stuck up her bum) and I was on the phone to my brother whilst I patiently unpicked and sewed all her badges onto new costume (who am I kidding…..I actually mean swearing like a trouper….well have you ever tried sewing a rigid badge onto an elastic stretching moving life of its own swimming costume?).
It was at this point that my brother (who is equally as lazy at sewing as me if not more so) suggested I used wonderweb……BIG, HUGE, GINORMUNGOUS mistake…..lets just say if I was embarrassed at her costume when it was too small…I would have been mortified to let her go to a public swimming pool with a gaping hole where the crotch should have been.
This error cost me a new iron and the life enriching job of unpicking the 5 badges I had already sewn onto new costume and sewing them and the other 10 onto another new costume……I shan’t take my little brothers advice again as he knows bog all about being a crap mum.
I found it not worth trying to wonderweb thongs that have been ripped off back together as there just isnt enough material to stick together.

I have also found that if you wash work trousers that have been hemmed up with wonderweb at 95 degrees it doesn’t stay hemmed.

You also cant use it to tie someone to a bed or anything as it breaks too easy ....ahem I mean ......

So basically if you need a quick temporary repair or hem to an item of clothing or other material things……..wonderweb is your man but if it is a precious item of clothing or it needs to be a more permanent sewing job then you really need to….

A…Put it in the ironing basket until he has forgotten he owns it…then take it to the charity shop (that’s if it’s his)

B…Put it in the ironing basket until they have outgrown it…then take it to the charity shop (that’s if it’s the kids)

C….Take it straight round to your mum’s / the tailors and have it mended properly (if it’s yours)