Stitching Old Things To New Life

I grabbed this one in the library on the way to the
checkout machines, it was on the end of a shelf and I liked the cover. But I never looked inside till I got home. And found it to be a lovely read! How serendipitous is that? 

Molly Martin tells how her favourite socks wore out, and her Mum showed her how to mend them 

using a darning mushroom. And she loved the idea of reinforcing the thinning stitches, restoring the socks to a new life. She has been stitching and mending ever since. She became an artist and textile repairer, and now works with the company TOAST to teach others to mend. 

This book is a distillation of all she has learned about mending, told through the garments which have been restored. 

Mollie brings the global vocabulary of mending to us - Japanese wabi-sabi [beauty in imperfection] 

and boro [tattered] where patches of fabric are stitched, layer upon layer

to make stronger, padded garments. Mottainai [not to waste] Then there is the Sanskrit word kantha - layering old saris and dhotis to make quilts. The old English word hussif - a contraction of housewife meaning a portable sewing kit [first on print in 1749] These were  used by men as well as women, 

notably soldiers across the world - from the American Civil War, through the Crimea, WW1 trenches and the Vietnam War.  And back to Japan again for sashiko ['little stabs] a reinforcing technique - and to Levi Strauss, who realised that adding copper rivets to his jeans meant they would last longer and could be patched and mended over and over again.

Her book is filled with stories of special garments mended by herself, or by friends. It is beautifully illustrated, and she devotes lots of pages to describing tools and techniques, so others can do mindful mending. And this slim volume is peppered with great quotes about repairing and restoring. I have copied them all down in a pretty notebook Kirsten sent me, and will be sharing them with you sometime. 

This book is a joy - learn about Mindful Mending - the history, the vocabulary, the techniques, the pictures, the stories. Even if you do not sew yourself, reserve it from the library to enjoy the read! *****