Oh, you sew! Can you hem my trousers?

Heard that one before?

When I tell people I sew, most people immediately think of all the clothes they have that need mending. And how easy it would be for me to hem their trousers, sew on a missing button, repair a hole. Let it be clear, I love sewing. I hate mending. And I reckon most people that sew would tell you the same thing.

But I’m guilty of such faux pas myself, in the past I’m sure I’ve said to a teacher “Oh! how nice it must be to have the summer off.”

To a physio, “I’ve a really annoying pain in my shoulder, when I move my arm like this, what should I do?” 

To a DJ “Play something that everyone will get up and dance to”.

To a traffic warden… actually I don’t talk to traffic wardens.

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But this post is not about teachers, physiotherapists, DJs and certainly not about traffic wardens, it’s about sewing for people who sew and people who do not sew. For people who think that if a t-shirt has a hole in it, then you might as well bin it. If a zip is broken, then that’s the end of that. And if you rip your ridiculously expensive North Face coat on the gate post as you’re rushing to collect your child from school and all the feather blow out down the road and you try and stop them but it seems like you’ve just murdered a pigeon and you’re already late and it’s freezing cold and you have no other coat and…

Oh! erm… well.. that’s what happened to ‘a friend’, it wasn’t me, I’m never late 😉

OK, it was me, but I did not buy myself a new coat, I fixed it and with my magical mending stitch, I’ll tell you about that later because you don’t need a sewing machine to mend, neither do you need a friend with a sewing machine, you really can do it yourself. However, you might need this book…

Fix Your Clothes: The Sustainable Magic of Mending, Patching, and Darning
by Raleigh Briggs is a short, 63 page, paperback book encouraging people to mend clothes rather than buy new clothes, to save money and help the planet.

“Clothes are expensive, and the clothing industry is the 2nd most polluting industry worldwide, and responsible for oppressive labor conditions around the globe. It just doesn’t make you feel good about buying new clothes.”

This fun little handwritten book with cute illustrations gives practical advice and instruction or a quick and dirty solution on how to:

• replace buttons
• repair seams
• patch and darn holes
• hem
• fix broken zips
• waterproof: canvas, leather, light fabrics and nylon

 

If you don’t mend your clothes already, now’s the time to start. Or if you know someone who could do with this handy guide to fixing and mending clothes in a give a man a fish kinda way, then you’ve come to the right blog.

Smile, there’s a GIVEAWAY!!!

I’ve teamed up with Microcosm Publishing and we are offering Needle and Ted readers the chance to win a copy of Fix Your Clothes by Raleigh Briggs.

Simply leave a comment below telling me how you are going to save the planet one stitch at a time. Ha! just kidding any comment will do, 3 winners will be picked at random. Giveaway closes 30 April 2017.

10% off

You can also receive 10% off your entire order at Microcosm Publishing, not just books, go and see if there is anything that takes your fancy. Then enter the coupon code “MADEIT” at checkout for your 10% discount.

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Want to hear about my Magical Mending Stitch? Read on…

Stitch No. 14 on my Bernina 350 may look like just another decorative stitch but, it has magical powers. If you haven’t got a Bernina 350, check your machine stitches, it’s quite possible that you have the same stitch or similar.

Imagine you have a rip in your favourite dress (or coat). We all know how unethical it is to just chuck things away. Magical Mending Stitch to the rescue…

Stitch down the centre of the rip and it will magically join together. The default setting (stitch length 2) is not bad, but it could be better…

The seam does not pass the stretch test, as you pull the seam, you can see holes. Not great.

But if you reduce the stitch length to 1, the result is magical. Nearly invisible, (you must use matching thread of course). Certainly invisible from afar…

And here’s the stretch test…

There are other times when the magical mending stitch can come in handy for butting fabric together to make a seam. So keep this in mind, because Stitch No. 14 on the Bernina 350 is magic.

“Buy less, choose well, make it last.”

Vivienne Westwood