#mending

[florad0ra]

fun upcycle/repair from today

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Practical sewing and stitching techniques (Mending holes and altering lengths)

[rederiswrites]

The trouble with mending, and all the cute visible mending trends especially, is that mending is predicated on the idea that what you have is an essentially sturdy garment that has worn out in a high-wear area or gotten damaged/torn. Whereas what most of us are actually dealing with is cheaply made shit that has simply given out at the first sign of adversity. If you mend something that's weak to begin with, it's entirely likely that it will just tear at the edge of the mend, which will suddenly be the strongest part of the garment. Or if your shirt has worn through or ripped out at the seam, it's just a crap shirt, and you can fix that seam, but another will give soon, and you have to make an honest assessment of whether the work you put in is worth it. My cheap Hanes white cotton socks blow out at the heels far faster than they ever used to, and fuck a bunch of that, but I'd never bother darning them. They'll just blow out at the toes in a month.

I don't have a solution to offer for this that doesn't involve spending either more money or more time. It is still barely possible to buy quality clothing, but it costs more than most of us can afford. And you can still make your own clothing, but as the skills and tools become less common, it's all the harder to learn. All I can say is look around, make a real assessment of your resources (like, say, Grandma still has a working machine and a stash of probably unfashionable but maybe cute fabric, or you think you can afford two pairs of good work pants a year and then keep them mended), and do your best.

[pumpkinpaix]

kinda wish I had taken a photo of these before, but I’ve been doing some visible mending on my clothes recently :) the fashionable distressing had turned into slightly less fashionable gaping holes lol

thought it would be fun to try and continue the tree print onto the pants themselves to make it look like they were growing out—I’m not terribly good at embroidery bc I don’t do it very often but I think it turned out well!! yay :) I left some of the frayed edges in bc I liked the look, and I’m pretty happy with that decision \o/

[heavymead0w]

Forever finding new holes in my mom's favorite sweater

[clotheshorsepodcast]

This weekend I thrifted the cutest book ever....like I literally gasped when I pulled it off the shelf in the craft book section of Freedom Thrift near Blue Ball (real town name, I promise).  

The book is called "Soft Toys to Stitch and Stuff," a Farm Journal Craft Book, published in 1983.  Sometimes I think I've seen all the cool weird vintage books...and then I encounter a new one.   As soon as I opened this one, I knew the images had to be used for some Clotheshorse-isms about fast fashion, consumerism, and wealth inequality.  Also, I definitely need to make some of these animals because they are all amazing!

Which one is your favorite?

ETA: A lot of you are asking me to scan patterns from this book for you. Unfortunately my scanner is too small for that. But the good news? Is that you can find the whole book here: https://archive.org/details/softtoystostitch0000bens

[africanmorning]