El remiendo no quedó bien que digamos.

Remiendo literally means a patch or mend—for example, a piece of fabric used to repair a hole in clothing.

In context, it can also refer more generally to a repair job or a makeshift fix. So in this sentence, el remiendo is the thing that was done to fix something, and the sentence is saying that the result was not very good.

Common senses:

• literal: a patch on trousers, a shirt, etc.
• figurative: a clumsy repair or temporary fix

So here you can think of it as:

• the patch
• the mending
• the repair job

Yes, quedar often means to stay, to remain, or to be left, but it also has another very common use: to turn out / to end up / to look after something is done.

In this sentence, quedó bien means:

• it turned out well
• it came out well
• it looked good in the end

So El remiendo no quedó bien means the patch/repair didn’t turn out well.

This use of quedar is very common in Spanish:

• La tortilla quedó buenísima. = The omelette turned out great.
• El dibujo quedó raro. = The drawing came out looking strange.
• La camisa te queda bien. = The shirt looks good on you / fits you well.

So here, quedar is about the final result.

Quedó is the preterite, so it presents the result as a completed event: the patch was done, and the final outcome was that it didn’t turn out well.

So:

• quedó = it turned out / ended up
• quedaba = it used to turn out / it was turning out / it looked (in an ongoing or descriptive sense)
• ha quedado = it has turned out / it has ended up

Why quedó works well here:

• It sounds like a finished judgment about a completed repair.
• The speaker is commenting on the final result.

Compare:

• El remiendo no quedó bien. = The patch didn’t turn out well.
• El remiendo no ha quedado bien. = The patch hasn’t turned out well.
  This is also possible, especially in areas where the present perfect is common for recent events.
• El remiendo no quedaba bien. = The patch didn’t look right / wasn’t looking good.
  This sounds more descriptive or tied to a situation in progress.

Que digamos is an idiomatic expression. In sentences like this, it adds the idea of:

• exactly
• really
• you could say
• to put it mildly

So no quedó bien que digamos means something like:

• it didn’t turn out very well, to say the least
• it didn’t turn out well exactly
• it wasn’t exactly a good result

It often softens the statement slightly while also sounding a bit ironic or understated.

A very common pattern is:

• No es barato que digamos. = It’s not exactly cheap.
• No canta bien que digamos. = He/She doesn’t sing very well, to say the least.
• No fue fácil que digamos. = It wasn’t exactly easy.

So que digamos is not meant to be translated word-for-word in a strict way. It works as a fixed expression.

Most of the time, yes. It very often appears after a negative statement and is especially common in patterns like:

• no + verb + adjective/adverb + que digamos
• no es + adjective + que digamos

Examples:

• No está limpio que digamos.
• No fue barato que digamos.
• No salió bien que digamos.

This gives a sense of understatement: the speaker says something mildly negative, but implies the reality may be even worse.

It can occasionally appear in other structures, but for learners, the safest and most useful thing is to treat it as something that usually follows no.

Bien is an adverb here, and it modifies quedó.

So:

• quedar bien = to turn out well / to look good / to fit well, depending on context

In this sentence:

• El remiendo no quedó bien = The patch did not turn out well

You can think of bien as describing the quality of the result.

Compare:

• La comida quedó bien. = The food turned out well.
• El peinado quedó bien. = The hairstyle came out well.
• El arreglo no quedó bien. = The repair didn’t turn out well.

Because el remiendo refers to a specific patch/repair, not just the general idea of patching.

Spanish often uses the definite article where English might say:

• the patch
• the repair
• or sometimes just rely on context

So El remiendo means:

• the patch
• that patch
• the repair job

If you said just Remiendo by itself, that would not work here as a normal complete subject. Spanish generally needs the article with a singular countable noun used this way.

It’s somewhat softened.

If you say:

• El remiendo no quedó bien.

that is a straightforward negative evaluation.

If you say:

• El remiendo no quedó bien que digamos.

it sounds a bit more nuanced. The speaker is still clearly saying it was bad, but the phrase que digamos adds:

• understatement
• irony
• a conversational tone

It can feel like:

• Well, it didn’t exactly turn out well
• It wasn’t very good, to say the least

So it is negative, but not brutally direct.

Yes. It sounds natural and idiomatic.

The especially natural part is no ... que digamos, which is a common conversational pattern. A native speaker might use it when they want to sound:

• less blunt
• slightly ironic
• more colloquial

So this sentence feels like normal spoken Spanish, not textbook Spanish.

The noun remiendo is also perfectly normal, especially when talking about clothes, fabric, repairs, or a rough fix.

Yes, depending on what exactly was repaired.

Possible alternatives:

• El arreglo no quedó bien que digamos. = The repair didn’t turn out very well.
• La reparación no quedó bien que digamos. = The repair job wasn’t exactly good.
• El parche no quedó bien que digamos. = The patch didn’t turn out very well.

The difference is mostly nuance:

• remiendo often suggests a patch or somewhat improvised mend
• arreglo is broader and very common for a fix
• reparación sounds more neutral or formal
• parche is often a literal patch, though it can also be figurative

Yes, and this is something learners often notice.

Quedar bien can mean different things depending on context:

• to turn out well
  La tarta quedó bien.
• to look good
  Ese color te queda bien.
• to fit well
  La chaqueta me queda bien.
• to make a good impression / behave politely
  Quedaste muy bien con ellos.

In your sentence, the meaning is clearly the result turned out well / badly sense.

So:

• El remiendo no quedó bien
  does not mean the patch stayed well. It means the final result of the patching was not good.

It’s better to learn it as a chunk.

Literally, que digamos is something like that we say or let’s say, but that literal wording does not help much in English. The real value is understanding how it functions.

A good learner’s shortcut is:

• no ... que digamos = not exactly ... / not really ... / to say the least

So:

• No quedó bien que digamos
  ≈ It didn’t turn out very well, to say the least ≈ It wasn’t exactly well done

If you memorize the pattern as a whole, you’ll understand and use it more naturally.