So much mending…

Mending ebbs and flows in this household, and I think it tends to flow when the seasons change. It’s because instead of mending when things are put away at the end of a season (as I no doubt should), I tend to pull them out as I want them and find that they need mending. This winter, this blanket finally got a nice new edge, complete with leaf and bud prints. It has waited several years, but now it’s done.

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Then there is the woollen singlet mending. I’m addressing a combination of wear and moth damage, I believe. Some places, I darn.

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Others require a patch. This one on the inside.

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And of course, there is more than one garment requiring mending. Some of them I started mending in wild mismatched colours. This one, I usually mend with whatever is left on a needle in my needle book. I counted, and there are now upwards of 30 mends on it. No, I haven’t figured out when I’ll stop!

And of course, there are random buttons that need to be sewn on, and mends that are so depressing I didn’t photograph them. In fact, the garment in that last picture accompanied me to a lovely Zoom event that was all about textile art. Clearly the fact that I was sewing was observed and some folks wanted to see what I was doing. I was just too embarrassed to show my very worn, very much mended, undergarment (even on Zoom)! I’ve been through a few old posts and found this singlet being mended in July last year, and already overdyed and being darned in many colours in 2016, and in its original colour with three different coloured darns in 2015, and its first darns in 2014. The one above appears here, mended, in 2015. Well, that’s a reality check on how long I’ve been mending them, and how likely it is that I am now mending wear rather than insect damage. *Cough*!

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Then there was the garden glove mending. Waxed linen thread is my preferred option.

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The dodgy back pocket mend on one of my pairs of gardening jeans…

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Then I decided that I’d wear this top more if it was slightly longer. So I took out the hem and substituted some leftover quilt binding, so that the total length of the garment is slightly greater.

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And–more mending on the leg of my gardening jeans. You can see I’ve overlapped the new patch with the old one, and added stitching to secure the overlap.

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And then, there’s touching up the quilt where some patches have pulled apart, and stopping the wheat bag from leaking. And… you get the picture!