Weekend Mending

When it comes to sewing bits of fabric together
and mending holes in my clothing
I'm a sloppy running stitch kind of gal.

But fixing stuff still demands decisions: 
Is it best to put the patch on the outside, or on the inside?
​Should I use denim or plain weave cotton?

Raw edge with chain stitch?
Raw edge with buttonhole stitch?
Or turn the ends under?

Might as well try all three and see which lasts longest.

The indigo wears off high spots of the patch just as it does on jeans

These garments, after all, are for wearing while working.
I have no one to please but myself
​and it pleases me to be warm.

After 15 + years of almost daily use (and nearly that many of mending),
you can still see some of the original fabric on the sleeve of my studio jacket.
Every couple of years I dunk the whole thing into an indigo pot
​to even out the hodge podge of patches.

Silk/Rayon Velvet takes indigo very nicely.

Sometimes my patching fabric choices have not been wise.
​
​But so what?

Though deeply influenced by the concept of Boro 
and delighted to be distracted by looking at such garments
I choose my patch materials from my current collection of scraps--
 an ever-changing assortment-- 
and stitch with the yarn or thread at hand
so it never looks like proper sashiko.
​​
​The mood of the moment is all.

This is not the case when mending things for other people.

When an adorable puppy had his way with my friend Heather's precious hand spun mitt,  I agreed to do my best to make it useable -- then put it off for months while I worried about continuity, fretted about technique and dreaded trying to live up to the high standards of of the original maker, my dear friend Nancie who died a year ago this month. 

This past weekend on my annual retreat with my spinning group
 I finally tackled them,

First I darned all the little puppy-teeth holes.
Next I unraveled the mess around the pinkie, picked up what I hoped was the right number of stitches and re-knit it using my hand spun which didn't match in anything but grist (two ply cormo, about 3000 yards per pound). 

Then it was time for the mess around the middle and pointer fingers.
Truth to tell, by that time I was a touch frustrated.
Indeed, if it had been mine, I'd probably have done some casual stitching around the raw edge to halt the fraying and called it good -- anything to avoid more time with 00 needles, miniscule open stitches and fragments of yarn.

 But I couldn't do that to Heather and Nancie's  Mitties.
​And luckily my dear spinning comrades wouldn't let me.
Vicki took the whole thing out of my hands and carefully ripped back until she reached solid mitten (apologizing for undoing the pinkie finger I'd just made, but doing the wise thing nonetheless), and reknit to the base of the fingers, continuing one part of the complicated and unrepeatable cable into the new section. 

I patched my jeans, drank beer and practiced feeling grateful instead of guilty. 

Rochelle then re-knit the fingers -- three of them anyway.

I worked on my jacket with glee and relief. 
​
Mary Jo wanted to knit the last finger but found her gauge was too different
so Vicki remade the pinkie with a smidgn more of my even darker hand spun.

I wove in the ends and gave both mitts a bath.

Here is the result of our communal Visible Mending: 
functional, beautiful in a new way, worth the effort, clearly not new, done. 
Thank You Tom of Holland for the term.

 Thank You Nancie for what we hope is your approval. ​

After I send this post into the inter-webs
(and have a bracing cup of tea),
I'll deliver them to Heather. 


Then I can come home and resume admiring my knees.