The past few years the farm season has been creeping more and more into my season of textile work. Once the harvest season work is complete I jump right into the whirlwind of packaging all the natural dyes, photographing them, and getting everything listed to the shop and shipped off. By the time the farm season dust finally settles my house and studio are a mess. Organized but far from clean. So my first task before settling into textile season and indoor cozy-by-the-fire-living is to give the house and my studios a proper scrub down. This winter one of the biggest scrub downs happened in my closet where some moths got down and dirty sowing their oats in my hand knit sweaters. Argh. I had to wash every single garment. The silver lining was that it put me in a mending mood. I burned or composted the garments that were no longer serving me or that were too Swiss-cheesed by moths to save, and I made piles of everything that needed mending. I make most of my clothes from linen, or hemp fabrics that I naturally dye so they can be composted when they reach their end. I often choose to make new clothes rather than to take the time to mend them because I’m a fast sewer. I also tend to make the same patterns over and over again so the pattern pieces are cut and ready to go. It takes me longer to mend a garment that requires a lot of repairs. My work is hard on my clothes so they’re not going to last forever. I have no shame in making new items, wearing them hard, composting them when they’re worn out, and repeating this cycle. This year though I’m in the mood to mend. I’m using it as an opportunity to turn some super threadbare compost destined garments into heavily mended works of art. I love how this type of mending transforms a garment from something farmy to something that can be worn to the fanciest of places. Here are the garments I’ve been taking time to mend.
I made this dress from a pretty light weight linen fabric several years ago. The pattern can be found in the book Simple Modern Sewing by Shufu To Seikatsu Sha which is sadly out of print. The linen is really pretty but I have no business wearing lightweight fabric. It would’ve held up so much better for me in a medium weight. The dress had a bunch of tears and when I began patching them I realized it wasn’t going to work. The fabric was too weak to hold the patches.
The only way to save it was to completely cover it in new fabric held together with dense stitches. This type of mending is a traditional Japanese method called boro mending. I plan to cover the entire bodice and sleeves with naturally dyed scraps from my scrap basket and then to leave the skirt as it is. The top will be heavy and stiff from the dense stitches but the skirt will retain its drape. Over time when the skirt requires repair I imagine the entire garment will evolve to become a boro mended piece. A future winter’s work. I’ll share more about this piece as I make more progress with it.
The next garment I mended is this vintage pair of Big Mac overalls I purchased from an antiques store. They were pretty worn when I bought them but I went ahead and wore the heck out of them on the farm. Vintage denim is much tougher than modern denim. I began mending them by sewing big pieces of naturally dyed fabric over the worn areas. There were no holes but the fabric was getting threadbare in places. I made the patchwork patches from remnants in my scrap basket.
The straps were super frayed so I covered them in new hemp fabric that I dyed with indigo. I bound the frayed edges of the bib the way you bind a quilt. I used black sashiko thread in some places and a thin traditional hand quilting thread in others. This was a super fun project! I don’t plan to wear these bibs on the farm anymore. Their retirement days will be spent in fancy places, although I always say that and my nice things inevitably become farmy.
I purchased this Pyne and Smith dress several years back. It’s a lightweight linen that’s becoming pretty threadbare. I’ve been adding mending patches to it over the years and they’re holding up well so far. I love anything stripes so I’ll try to keep this one around awhile longer.
This button-down was made from the same thin black linen previously mentioned. The pattern is also from the book Simple Modern Sewing. I love this top and made another one from a heavier weight brown linen and that one is holding up much better. This one will also become a boro mended piece over time as I continue to stitch down fabric scraps to reinforce the linen.
This cute little mend is the armpit seam of the heavier weight brown linen version of the linen shirt I shared above.
This pair of Patagonia hemp overalls is holding up pretty good for as much as they’ve been worn around the farm. I’ll continue to mend them as they need it over the years.
I made this pair of Jenny Overalls several years ago from vintage denim. The clasps were broken from machine washing so I replaced them and gave them that cute little mend over a little hole in the bib.
The last two I have to share are both handmade garments. The pants are Anna Allen’s Persephone Pants pattern. I made them several years ago from a dark blue and white striped canvas fabric. Sadly I forgot them on the clothesline in the greenhouse for a couple weeks and they got terribly sun faded. I dipped both these garments in my indigo vat for a glow up and they’re looking pretty fresh! The dress is the Fen Dress Pattern by Fancy Tiger Crafts but sadly Fancy Tiger shut down recently. This fabric was a white and gray stripe but the stripes disappeared when I dipped it in the indigo. Over time as I wash this a bunch and the indigo fades the stripes may reappear. Fingers crossed!
Next on my mending list is to work my way through all my hand knit sweaters that the moths chewed up. I love visible mending on woven garments but mostly prefer invisible mending on my knits. If you have any resources to share regarding invisibly mending knits please do share! I’ll post my knit mends once they’re complete.
