Every year over a million tonnes of garment waste ends up in landfills the world over. Between fast fashion and lightning quick trend changes the fashion industry is one of the most wasteful out there. Clothes are worn once or not at all before being thrown out. According to Earth.org the average american throws out over 80 pounds of clothes every year. Most clothes that are donated to thrift stores are never purchased, instead they're thrown out after a certain amount of time, or never even make it to the racks. Having worked in a major thrift store for years I can tell you first hand that most of the donated clothes end up in the trash. People are buying clothes more than they ever have, the amount of garments purchased increased by 60% between 2000 and 2014.
mending lengthens the life of a garment, and it also adds unique beauty to it. it keeps garments out of the trash, meaning you have to buy and throw out less. it's been several years since I decided to get my clothes almost exclusivly at the thrift store, which keeps clothes out of the landfill, but it also means that quite often the clothes i buy are already on their way to wearing out. mending is how i extend the life of my garments and leave my mark on them. It's also important for me to respect the items I have in my life, and i feel that mending and caring for my clothes is the best way to do that. When i repair a hole in a tshirt i am honouring the maker who put it together, the worker who harvested the cotton, the cotton plant itself. We all know by now that the fashion industry is full of sweat shop labour and modern slavery, and by cherishing and caring for my garments instead of throwing them away when they get old i feel like i am doing some small part to ackgnowledge that the work that went into making the clothes in my closet was not in vain, was not to make something that would be garbage in a few months.
I also just love to mend. I love the process of sitting and stitching for a couple of hours. I love adding personal and creative touches to clothes. I love the clothes I own, and i don't like to throw them out because i have built my wardrobe with such care. mending is relaxing, connects you to the world around you, and can be what the author of my favourite mending book, Mend!, Kate Sekules, calls "menditation," the meditative like state you can achieve while mending. it's a hobby that i genuinly really enjoy.
so with all that said, why do i do specifically visible mending? why not mend things look as much like new as possible, why do I like to draw attention to the mending I do? well for one thing by not caring to disguise my mends i can use whatever i have on hand instead of having to go out and buy materials that match the garment i'm trying to fix. if i have to buy new materials for every garment i'm trying to mend that's gonna create more waste, cost more money, and tbh be more trouble than it's worth. and besides, i love how it looks and how creative i can be with it.
visibly mending something makes a garment unique and one of a kind, and it also makes a statement. it draws attention to itself, tells people that i'm a mender. that I put that care into my clothes and value creativity and sustainability. Like visible mender Ruth Woods says, "Items which have been mended tell a story. When you are mending, it is meditative and reflective of the event." When I wear an item i've mended i remember where i was in my life when i sat down to stitch it back up. When I put on the white tierd skirt i've mended dozens of times i can look at every patch and seam and remember the years i've owned it. something else that makes stories out of my mends is the materials i mend with. I have scraps and patches that i've got from my grandmother, from my mother in law, from old clothes i used to love but which are too far gone to be repaired. those are memories in themselves; every time i use the shiny blue fabric leftover from when my grandmother made me a dance bag when i was five i feel connected to my history and the seamstresses i come from.
also, its fun! and i like how it looks! i have nothing against non-visible mending, but it's both too boring and too stressful for me personally. I love the look of visible mending, i love the uniqueness, i love how every mender has their own signature style. i would 100 times rather have a fun, playful time mending and have a colourful, exciting garment afterwards than stress about making my mends as neat and invisible as possible. that's just not my style.
I think that it's important to share informaion freely. I think that, even though it's not like i have some huge reach, it's important to provide resources to help others learn and develop. Something I do for my irl community is free mending popups, and something i want to do for my digital community is provide information, resources and tutorials to allow you to do your own mending and build your skills if you want. I genuinly think nearly anyone can mend, and that it can be an incredibly affordable and rewarding hobby. The only things you really NEED to mend are a few tools you can get at the dollar store. You can get extra with it, of course, you can get specialty tools and materials and fun different kinds of threads and materials, and you can do all kinds of extravagent things to mend, but you can also stitch on a patch in five minutes with minimal tools and fabric salvaged from old clothes.
Mending is sustainable. Mending is creative. Mending is fun and beautiful and revolutionary. In a world that values capitalism and consumerism over almost everything else, mending is an act of rebellion.
if you want to start mending but don't know where to start, i've put together quick guides on three types of mending that are easy to learn and super versatile. these will take you pretty damn far, but they're just a start to what is possible with mending.
patches are one of the most versatile ways to mend damage. Any hole can be patched. Patches can be applied either on the side people see, called overpatching, or on the underside, called underpatching. all you need to patch is a piece of scrap fabric, a needle and thread, and scissors. optional materials are straight pins, measuring tape, needle threader, and an iron
this is easy, just pick the fabric you want to patch your garment with. if you can, keep these things in mind:
measure the hole you have to patch, if you don't have a measuring tape you can just do it by eye (I usually do it by eye even if i have measuring tape lol). cut your patch to be between a half inch and an inch bigger than the hole in both directions. then fold over the raw edges of your fabric. If you want to do an overpatch, fold them towards the wrong side of the fabric. If you're doing an underpatch, fold them towards the right side. if you have an iron you can iron the edges down so that they stay folded, or you can just pinch the edges while you're stitching to keep the edges folded correctly.
thread your needle, use a needle threader if you need to. if you don't have one it's easier to thread a needle by holding the thread still and moving the needle towards it rather than holding the needle still and moving the thread. You can also wet the end of the thread with your mouth to make it easier, pinching the end of the thread together with your lips to make a sharp edge. if all else fails and the thread is starting to unravel at the end snip the scraggly bits off to have a clean edge which is easier to thread. cut a length of thread that's no longer than your arm, trust me it's better to run out of thread and have to cut more halfway through your patching than to have your thread tangle and snap. Knot the end of your thread, i always do it by wrapping the end around the tip of my finger a few times, rolling the loops off of my finger, and pulling tight. it creats a snarled mess of a knot that I usually trim down a little.
place your patch over your hole (if you're doing an underpatch turn your garment inside-out). if you have pins then pin it in place, if you don't then make peace with the fact that you either have to hold it together really well or it might come out kinda bunched up. sew around the edge of your patch using any stitch you want. if you're brand new to sewing i'd go for a whip stitch or a straight stitch. go all around the edge of the patch, and make sure not to sew one side of your garment to the other, which is something i've done a few times haha. when you're finished going around your patch, or you reach the end of your thread, tie off your thread by making a stitch, not pulling it all the way through, and then passing the thread through that loop and pulling tight.
if you want to make the patch more secure, turn your garment inside out (or outside in if you were doing an underpatch) and stitch around the edge of the hole, to secure those edges to the patch. Alternatley, you could just make stitches all the way across the patch if you want a super strong patch.
darning is really great especially for knit garments, but you can darn on anything. it's got a really good texture and it takes more time than patching, but it is one of my favourite ways to mend. to darn a garment you need a darning needle (these are larger needles that are used for yarn instead of thread), yarn that is about the same thickness as the fabric you're mending, and scissors. an optional tool is a darning egg/mushroom/disc
thread your needle, making sure that it's big enough to fit your yarn. I find the easiest way to thread yarn through a needle is to fold the yarn around the needle and pull it off sharply so that a crease forms in the yarn. this can be more easily threaded than the raggedy end of the yarn. Cut a long length of yarn, about the length of your wingspan. It's easier to add more yarn later than it is to deal with a tangled snarl of yarn. once you have that spread out the section of your garment that has the damage and assess where the hole and how much it has stretched out of shape. This usually happens at least a little, but if you're working on a knit you can follow the lines of the stitches to try and realign the fabric to it's original shape. if you're darning over a curve (like the toe or heel of a sock) and you have a darning egg or mushroom you can hold the damaged part over the curve of the egg/mushroom so you are darning over a curve which will make the darn the right shape. if you don't have one don't worry about that though.
pick a corner of your hole to be the bottom left, and start stitching between a half inch and quarter inch further down and to the left. make a line of stitches that's parallel to the hole and goes a little further to the right than the hole. what you're doing here is starting your stitches in a part of the garment that's secure. you should have two or three rows of stitches in the area of the garment that's stable before reaching the hole on all sides.
I feel like i've burried the lead a little, but darning is just weaving a new section of cloth into where there is none. So this step forms the warp, and later you'll form the weft. make rows of stitches back and forth across the area of damage. there should be two or three stitches in the stable area of fabric before you reach the hole. When you reach the damaged area of the fabric skip over it, resulting in long sections of yarn close together stretching over the hole. once you've covered the entire hole make a few more lines of stitches to keep the yarn secure.
make a few lines of stitches going down, across your horizantal stitches. when you reach a section of damage where the horizantal yarn isn't stitched into anything, begin basket weaving. alternate going over and under your warp threads, and when you're coming back up the other way alternate which threads you go under and over.
continue this pattern across the entire area of damage. once you've finished do a couple of rows of stitching into the secure area of fabric. cut your yarn with a couple inches of remaining space, and weave in your ends. weaving in ends just means that you hide the ends in the rest of the fabric. If you feel the need to secure your ends even more you can tie small knots into the knit of the fabric, but that's usually not necessary.
buttons are under a lot of stress all the time, and sometimes they pop off. it's a good skill to know how to reattach one, or replace it with a new button if you lose the original. it's a pretty easy task, but there are some tips i have that could make it easier. All you need is a button, a needle and thread, and scissors. optionally you can use button thread
If you're sewing a button back on that you still have, this step is simple. But if you've lost the button, there are a couple of things you gotta consider before picking a new one, mainly the size. too big and it wont fit through the button hole, but too small and it'll slip out of place way too easily. If there are other buttons on the garment you're working on compare the button size to other buttons to get one right, but if you can't do that try to slip the button through the buttonhole before sewing it on. It should be just a little difficult to get it through.
make sure your needle can pass easily through the holes of the button you've chosen. if you can, look for thread that's labled as being for buttons, as it's thicker and stronger than regular thread. buttons take a lot of stress, so using button thread will help your button stay on for longer. If you can't get button thread don't worry, just do more stitches to make sure that the button is on very securly. Make a knot with the same method shown in the patching instructions.
right what it says on the tin, stitch up through the back of the fabric where you want the button to be, go through one button hole and down through a different one. the pattern you make doesn't matter very much, whether you want to make an x between the button holes or two straight lines, that's basically just style points. Your button might have less than 4 holes, or more if you have some kinda freak button lol. whatever you got, just go through a different hole each time you stitch up or down. try to go back down through the fabric in roughly the same place every time, but not the exact same place. Do this at least four or five times through each hole, more than that if you're not using button thread.
for your last stitch, come back up through the fabric but not through any of the button holes so that your thread is coming out from beneath your button. wrap the thread around all the stitches between the button and the fabric two or three times, and then go back down to the back of the fabric. this creates space for the button to fit through the button hole.
tie off your thread by making a small stitch and not pulling it all the way through, leaving a loop. pass the thread through that loop and pull tight. Do this a couple times for extra security.
this is my #1 reccomendation if you want to buy a book on mending. this book is a fantastic, not only for its instructional quality but also as a manifesto about why you should mend. it has a lot of information about the history of mending as well as mending in the present day. it has instructions on how to put together a mending kit ranging from the bare essentials to cool fancy tools if you want to get wild with it. it has information on caring for your clothes to make them last longer and how to put together a wardrobe you love. there's also great tips on what kinds of mends to do on different kinds of fabric and damage, as well as a whole lot of inspiration. it's a really fun book and has so much fantastic information. It assumes no knowledge of sewing, but isn't only useful to complete beginners either. overall it's a fantastic resource that I always highly reccomend.