Best Emergency Sewing Kits for Survival
People don’t often consider clothes as an essential part of survival. Clothes are just a form of shelter that you wear, and if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you by keeping you dry, warm, and shielded from the sun. Taking care of them during an emergency can be tough since disasters are hell for clothes. When you rip or tear something, you want to be able to quickly repair it and get back to more important tasks. This is why our little hero, the emergency sewing kit, is found on almost every survival kit list.
There are plenty of brands and types to choose from when it comes to emergency sewing kits. This is where we come in. We’ve researched the best sewing kits, tested them, and the results are in: the overall best, a budget option, and an upgrade option. If you need a sewing kit that will hold its own in an emergency, one of our suggestions will keep you put together.
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Best Emergency Sewing Kit
Fiskars Travel Sew Kit
Simple, Effective, and Comprehensive
A wide range of sewing and clothing repair tools you’ll use at a reasonable price.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Fiskars offers reliable and inexpensive options for emergency kits that are accessible to everyone. Their travel sewing kit outperforms expectations for such a small and inexpensive kit.
Specifications
- Sewing Items: 27
- Size: 2.5″ x 1.75″ x 0.75″
- Weight: 1.3 ounces
Its tiny carrying size and low weight are unmatched, and the quality is better than brands that cost twice as much. The hinged scissors that unfold aren’t the most comfortable, but they enable the kit to be so small.
The included multi-colored thread spool, bag of buttons and needles, and fabric measuring tape round out the kit nicely with the bare basics for a wide range of emergency situations.
With 27 pieces coming in at just over five bucks, the Fiskars Travel Sew Kit is the top pick for your kit.
Gear Repair Sewing Kit
Gear Aid
Smart, Reliable, and Effective
Sew and repair anything and everything with this robust kit, where clothes are just the start of what you can fix.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
The piece count isn’t very high, but the included sewing gear is designed to repair heavy-duty materials, which makes the whole kit versatile.
Specifications
- Sewing Items: 19
- Size: 1″ x 1″ x 3″
- Weight: 1.9 ounces
The twist-tube storage works well to keep everything together and lets you stash it in tight spots in your bag.
Everything in the Gear Aid Gear Repair Sewing Kit is just durable, and you know it as soon as you start using it. This gear will let you repair not just your clothes, but packs, tarps, tents, and other heavy-duty textiles as well.
Upgrade Sewing Kit
Plantational Upholstery Repair Kit
Large variety, Compact, and Versatile
Better variety than other mini kits, this sewing kit checks the box without hurting your wallet.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
A slightly larger case will get you 10 spools of different colored thread and a range of needles, including curved upholstery needles.
Specifications
- Sewing Items: 47
- Size: 3.8″ x 5.8″ x 1.2″
- Weight: 8.1 ounces
You can match clothing or gear easily with the thread assortment, and the different needles make handling different materials, including leather, easier.
This Plantational Sewing Repair Kit is an excellent choice for those looking to cover most of their emergency sewing needs.
Comparison Table
| Survival Sewing Kit | Recommendation | Price* | Items | Best Feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiskars Travel Sew Kit | Best Overall | $6 | 27 | Folding scissors |
| Gear Aid Sewing Kit | Best for Gear Repair | $11 | 19 | Heavy-duty needles |
| Platational Upholstery Kit | Best Large Repair Kit | $12 | 47 | Upholstery needles |
The Sewing Kits We Compared
Our research narrowed the field down to several sewing kit brands and types that we tested: Singer, Rothco, Gear Aid, Vigilant Trails, Raine, Coghlan’s, Vanguard, and more.
There are a lot of brands that make sewing kits these days, with a wide range of prices and quality/durability. In a survival situation, you want your clothing repair solutions to be dependable, so we focused quite a bit on durability and quality. You can see our full list of review criteria below in the What to Look For section, with an explanation for each.
We obviously steered clear of recreational or hobby sewing kits because the performance and the durability are not going to be what we need them to be. We also did not consider any electric sewing kits, sticking with manual kits that don’t require a machine. Despite our experience with military sewing kits, the quality of these kits was not superior to brands known for sewing.
What to Look For
The best sewing kits have several important features to look for.
- Value
- Quality
- Functionality
- Durability
- Versatility
When you get the right blend of these, you can find a reliable sewing kit that will keep you out of rags in an emergency. Below, we break down what each of these features means for a truly dependable sewing kit:
Value: Cost vs. Benefit
The amount of money you spend on a sewing kit shouldn’t blow out your budget. Having one is better than having none, but the same applies to other gear and supplies you may need for an emergency. Budget according to your risk and your needs rather than just spending lavishly.
On the flip side, you don’t want to go too cheap. Even the super cheap Coghlan’s didn’t perform that well with durability (our budget pick runs laps around it), and it’s not the cheapest you could find in a bargain bin store. There are few things as soul-sucking as having gear fail on you in an emergency. When you are trying to repair your clothes, you don’t want to be fumbling around with bent needles and cheap thread.
You never want to spend too much money on one resource, especially something like a sewing kit. It’s better to diversify your tools and preparedness gear to make sure you are covered for a wide range of scenarios. There is a sweet spot where you get high value out of the best features at not too high a price, which is where our top pick sits.
Quality
Cheap needles, cheap thread, and dull scissors are not what you need in an emergency. Sure, you can find very inexpensive small sewing kits in plenty of stores, but they are not kits that you want to rely on in an emergency.
Functionality
The more tools and supplies in your kit, the more use you are going to be able to get out of it. The downside is you can’t load up with endless tools and supplies because it just takes too much room. There is a happy medium where a solid pair of scissors, plenty of needles, and strong thread can get you through most situations for a while. If you add a punch awl, upholstery needles, and other tools, then you can fix even more textiles that you run into.
Durability
Lower-quality sewing tools can also have poorer durability. Scissors will dull quickly, and needles will wear out and break quickly. Depending on your emergency, you may be relying on a survival sewing kit for a while. You’ll want it to keep up with you for as long as you need it.
Versatility
Being able to use your sewing kit for more than just fixing clothes provides versatility. Having the versatility of your sewing kit on tap to back up other tools is ideal since “two is one and one is none”. If your multitool, punch, or scissors aren’t working, it’s nice to know that you have solid backups in your emergency sewing kit. Versatility adds layers to your preparedness.
Weight can also fall under versatility. A heavy sewing box isn’t going to be versatile enough for a bug out bag, no matter the tools inside.
How to Use an Emergency Sewing Kit
If you didn’t take Home Ec in high school, you aren’t a lost cause. Sewing is pretty simple, and repairing buttons and tears, and patching holes isn’t rocket science.
Having someone show you the basics is the easiest way to learn. Just pick up a needle and thread, and close some rips in some clothes or sew on a button real quick. If you have someone who’s done it before looking over your shoulder, you’ll pick up the basics in a minute or two.
Irridum242 does a pretty good job of showing how everything works from our Upgrade Pick, and that is the kit with the most tools included that we suggest:
Who Needs a Sewing Kit?
Everyone can use an emergency sewing kit. Plenty of women keep them in their purses, but it’s not just for the ladies, fellas. They are military-issue (which is why there are plenty of military options), and wearing ratty, torn-up clothes with missing buttons isn’t a macho look when you just need your gear working in a survival situation.
Sewing kits are also surprisingly versatile, with all of the tools they include. A thread is always handy to have around and can be braided to improve strength.
A sewing kit is an essential part of these kits:
We highly suggest putting one in these kits:
You should consider adding a sewing kit to these kits:
Sewing kits are useful beyond emergencies, too, of course. A solid emergency sewing kit will easily be able to handle your wardrobe malfunction at work or anywhere else on the go.
How We Review Products: We research thoroughly before selecting the best products to review. We have vast prepping and survival experience and bring in outside experts when needed. Hours on end are spent testing gear in stressful conditions and using specialized testing gear to verify claims. We assign performance criteria and impartially rate each tested item. Learn more about how we test.
Sources & References
All of our experience and the testing we do to determine the best emergency sewing kit is useless without listing our research sources and references. We leaned on these for the book knowledge that we paired with our hands-on testing and practical military and prepping experience:
Guler, S., Gannon, M., & Sicchio, K. (2016). Cutting and Sewing. In: Crafting Wearables. Apress, Berkeley, CA. (Source)
Pitulko, V. & Pavlova, E. (2019). Upper Palaeolithic Sewing Kit from the Yana Site, Arctic Siberia. Stratum Publishing House. Issue 1, Pages 157 – 224. (Source).
Shanley, L., Slaten, B., & Shanley, P. (1993). Military Protective Clothing: Implications for Clothing and Textiles Curriculum and Research. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. Volume 11, Issue 3, Pages 55 – 59. (Source)
Conclusion
Emergency sewing kits have been around for a while and now come in several varieties. Sewing with eyed needles has been used for survival for over 30,000 years, according to carbon-dated bone needles!
It’s always a good idea to get used to your gear and resources before emergencies- an emergency sewing kit does no good if you don’t know how to sew!
To go along with your emergency sewing kit, you should also consider a few other tools that can help you fix things quickly in a jam:
- The Best Duct Tape for Emergencies and Survival
- The Best Survival Zip Ties for Emergencies and Prepping
- Home Survival Kit List | 53 Essentials
See more of our expert-written guides, resources, and reviews in your search results – add TruePrepper as a preferred source.
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