Visible mending practice

June 18, 2022

Visible mending practice

Near the beginning of the pandemic, I had one decent pair of jeans that was on its last legs, having had fraying holes in the inner thighs patched twice. I bought two more, with the intent that one pair, I’d wear then (I had a personal policy of always putting on jeans or a skirt for the day, not just living in my pajamas), and one that I’d keep for returning to work and civilization.

And the pandemic outlasted them both.

And I’ve been working, but something about not being able to do theater right now, probably, has made me crave the ability to feel good at making something again. Even though as a stage manager, I’m not an actor and I’m not precisely a member of the creative or design teams, when a show opens, I get to say “Look, I helped make that!” and I’ve been missing it. I don’t have a lot of space at home for doing very involved arts and crafts, but one thing I can do while I’m watching TV or movies at my desk is sew. And so when my latest new pair of “good” jeans started fraying (and me getting pissed off at constantly replacing jeans that don’t last), I started trying out some visible mending.

The basic idea is that by not trying to hide or disguise clothing repairs, you add artistic character to clothes in addition to extending their life.

These jeans still have a lot of work worth doing on them, but here’s one of my favorite patches so far:

A dark blue patch with a floral pattern attached to a pair of jeans with pink stitching. Yes, that’s Old Navy mask fabric.

Patch on a blown-out elbow of my favorite flannel shirt:

Burgundy-colored patch with a pattern of pink and white blossoms on a pink and burgundy plaid shirt. Yup, also a former Old Navy mask.

Some not-so-visible mending on an older t-shirt I love but whose front had worn full of tiny holes. I stitched squares of light cotton on the reverse side to reinforce particularly damaged areas, and also since the original t-shirt fabric is so delicate, to prevent new stitching from just ripping out:

A moss green t-shirt with an elaborate embroidered front has a whole bunch of tiny green embroidered stars hidden in the original pattern to close small holes.

Detail of crossed heart on sleeve where there used to be a hole:

A heart stitched in cream-colored thread on sleeve of green t-shirt, with a green star stitched over a small hole in the center.

I have to say, it’s definitely made it conspicuous that after 12 or so years of zombie apocalypse, no one in the Walking Dead is wearing significantly repaired jeans…

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