Visible Mending

Generally, whether repairing clothes or quilts for my customers, my goal is invisible mending.  But with visible mending being all the rage these days and I enjoy embroidery, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I've been looking at all sorts of mends that folks are posting on social media.  I've decided that what I like best are mends that neaten up the tears and holes.  And what I like even better are mends that make something artsy and fun out of the patches and mending stitches themselves.

It's Mend It May!

The other day, I discovered via Instagram that there's a tag for #menditmay where people share their mending adventures!  So, I'm taking this moment to pass along the links about mending that I've been coming across.

Mending used to be much more the norm back when many things were made by hand and were much more precious.

   

I love investigating old repairs.  Here's some old darning on a lovely Edwardian day dress.

Darn It! - Creative Mending

This post about creative mending is in honor of my personal New Year's tradition of mending everything I can during this week.  (I don't just do sewing mends, but I'm not going to tell you here about the new seat in my bentwood rocker and stuff like that.)  I like the symbolism of starting the year with a clean slate.  Or mostly clean slate.  I'm coming to terms with the reality that Life is never fully mended....

A short while ago, my blog was mentioned on a site called "Sew Mama Sew" - nice name, huh?  The article is called "All About Textile Repair: How to Repair with Stitching".  The theme is about making repairs that add something new - sparks of color, whimsy, a new design element, etc.

The photos in the article show loads of ways to use darning, sashiko stitching, and the like.  It looks really fun!  It makes me reminisce about the good ol' hippie days, when jeans were patched/embellished with colorful fabrics and embroidery.