Love and service through mending

An idea I learned about a couple of years ago has changed my sewing life. 

One of Brisbane's own sewing legends, Evelyn Wood of Vintage Sewing School fame, began what she called 'Monday Mending' to tackle her ever-growing mountain of items in need of mending. Every sewer knows there is always a mending pile, full of items that need hemming or have a button missing or a hole needing to be patched. The idea is to choose just one item from your mending pile each Monday, and get it done.

Upon learning of this idea, I immediately dedicated an empty basket as my mending basket and filled it to the handle with the items I'd found in my wardrobe needing some tender loving care. Just having one day a week set aside for this sometimes boring but always satisfying in the end task, was enough motivation for me to start working through my pile.

The trouble was, as I fixed items, new ones kept being added to the basket! I was paying more attention to my clothing so noticing when maintenance was needed, and because the items weren't sitting in the basket to be forgotten and never worn again, I was comfortable to set them aside for a short time until I reached them in the pile.
One item, a beautiful black knit dress, took me months of mending each Monday evening to stitch over all the moth holes. The dress was given to me in a donation bag of clothes and I could not part with this beautiful item. The thread I chose to use for the stitching was a glossy black satin, and it looks great against the matte black knit fabric.

It took me about 18 months before I saw the bottom of the mending basket for the first time since starting Monday Mending. Through that time I had fixed all of my own clothes, a couple of pieces for my husband, and several household items. Butters the cat unashamedly helped me mend many pieces that only needed mending because of him!

Over this time it had become clear to me that the act of mending is one of love and service in many ways. 

I posted many pictures of my mending on Instagram where I would look at other people's photos, all of Evelyn's were amazing, and I drew inspiration and motivation from the community all embarked on this project together. Once the word was out among my family and friends I started receiving their mending items too. My mending basket now has more items in it that don't belong to me than are mine (I still find items I own that need mending, just less often now).

I appreciate that my loved ones feel comfortable asking for my help to mend an item for them. They either don't know how, or don't have the time, and as they've seen I have made time over the last couple of years to mend! So far I have mended shirts and skirts, reattached pant buttons, and replaced cloth bag handles. Like all the craft I do for others, I use the time I'm working on the item to think about that person and reflect on our relationship. I am then able to return a mended item to them truly hand-mended with love.

The other big benefit of mending for others, is I'm able to help them in a practical way to care for our environment. Even if it doesn't cross their mind when they ask, if I'm able to help them keep a clothing item in their closet rather than buy a new one, that is awesome.

Caring for loved ones and their clothing, caring for my own pieces and household items, shows love and service to our possessions and the people in my life. All of this wraps up into loving nature by minimising consumption and waste. There have been very few times I've needed to purchase a supply for mending an item, I do my utmost to only use the materials I have in my stash.

Having an ongoing project to care for items and the environment has been deeply satisfying, and I've improved many of my sewing skills along the way. Monday Mending will probably continue for as long as I'm a sewer but I do look forward to seeing my mending basket empty again in the future - as long as it doesn't last for long.