Repairing Ripped Fabric

One of my current projects has been on the go for about 15 years now - I've lost the insert for it so I don't know the name or designer but it's a little grey rabbit sat in some grass. It's not a large design (especially compared to most of the others I'm stitching) and it's full cross stitches only, so I don't know why it's taking me so long! But I'm chipping away at it and hope to get it finished relatively soon.

Unfortunately, I'd nicked the canvas with my scissors. I've had this happen before, and a couple of posters at the cross stitch forum I post on kindly explained how I could repair the damage, so I thought I'd share it here as well.

Here's where I'd got to (the rip isn't very noticable in this picture but it's about halfway down the design and by one of the leaves to the left of the rabbit):

To repair a rip, you need to find a scrap of fabric that matches that of your design. Pin it underneath the damaged area so the holes in the fabric match up.

Back of Design:

 Front of Design:

Then stitch through both pieces of fabric.

This is straight forward enough when the rip is in the middle of a patch of stitches. But the rip in my rabbit design was in a spot with no stitches to be done. So I decided to add an internal border and repaired the fabric that way. It means a bit of extra stitching, but at least I can carry on and finish the design now.

Repair Work Front:

Repair Work Back:

Actually, I quite like the effect of having the border - so all's well that ends well!