According to CalRecycle, textiles are the fifth most common material in residential and commercial waste streams. California families send more than 1.2 million tons of textiles to landfills, accounting for 6% of the total waste stream. In the same vein, if a new garment is kept for nine months longer than the typical use cycle, it reduces the garment’s carbon footprint by 30% (The Waste and Resources Action Programme 2015). Learning how to repair our textiles can give them significantly longer useful lives while cutting back the volume of textiles being discarded and its impact on the environment.

In a world enveloped by fast fashion and linear textile streams, we encourage you to think about the longevity of your clothes and other textiles. How are you taking care of your garments/ textiles? How can you prolong the life of your second skin?

In these mending bar happy hours, you will learn how to transform your favorite moth-damaged, torn, or distressed garments, homewares, and other textiles by visibly mending and patching, and developing your own stitch patterns. You will be fusing fabrics together with stitch, so they become a new cloth!

Cost: Donation-based (suggested donation $5-40 at registration)

When: Monthly Mending Bar Happy Hours will be held Fourth Thursday of every month, 4-7p

Schedule & Mending Focus:

• November 17 — Sweater/ Knitwear Mending (*rescheduled from 11/24)

Time Slots: 4p, 4:30p, 5p, 5:30p, 6p, 6:30p — We will have rolling arrival times, so each person can have 1 on 1 with a mending teacher. Although we request that you arrive close to your timeslot, feel free to stay longer to work on your mending project.

Types of Mending: You have the option of practicing boro, sashiko, darning, & quilting techniques on a sampler first, or you can jump right in and start on the item you brought to repair. Each student will receive an individual consultation on how best to mend one garment considering fabric, fiber, thread, color, lines, techniques, and more. Students will leave the workshop with a stitching sampler (optional), mended garment (in-progress), and a basic understanding of mending. Basic sewing and stitching skills are required.

If you don’t have a garment to mend but want to explore visible mending to create an abstract art piece, you are also welcome to join! We often make practice samplers to explore different shapes and color stories that then get turned into pillows or wall hangings.

Materials provided:

• Fabric for creating a mending sampler
• Embroidery & pearl cotton thread
• Extra fabric for patches
• Yarn for mending/darning knitted garments and textiles
• Needles of varying types and sizes. (Sashiko needles will be provided during class & available for purchase)
• Embroidery hoops (Only available for use during class)
• Other: Scissors, chalk pencils, rulers, fabric glue sticks

Bring:

A Mending Project

• Please bring your own garment or textile for mending. Garments made out of cotton, linens, & lighter-weight types of denim are good starter projects. Do not bring heavy denim, canvas, silk, gauze, t-shirts or leggings, anything out of jersey fabric for your first project. We will talk about why these things are harder to mend and best practices for mending them.
• Patching fabric: Patching fabric should match the weight and fiber of the garment being mended. Don’t worry if you don’t have fabric, there will be fabric available in class too. If fixing a pair of jeans with stretch, using t-shirt fabric works well or other denim with stretch. Using cloth that has already softened and settled through wear and washing, for instance, pillowcases, tea towels, well-worn shirts, as well as some fresh new shirting fabrics make great patches.
• 1-3 skeins if using different colors (half skeins are fine) of embroidery, sashiko, or pearl cotton thread. Thread and yarn available for use.
• Embroidery hoop that is a suitable size to fit the project. When picking out an embroidery hoop you want a minimum of 2” of room beyond the area being mended. Embroidery hoops will also be available to use.
• Sashiko or embroidery needles. Sashiko needles will be available for purchase if you don’t have them already. Thread will also be available to use. AND/ OR

A Darning Project (Woven mending)

• Please bring your own woven fabric garment or textile for mending.
• Yarn to use for mending. Yarn will be available for use.
• Darning egg or mushroom, speed loom, or tennis ball, a rubber band or hair tie. Darning eggs will also be available for use.
• Duplicate stitch/knitted mending: Bring double-pointed or regular needles in the appropriate size as well as a size or two smaller for picking up stitches and a darning needle. Circular needles in a 16” or 24” also work but aren’t ideal. Darning needles will also be available to use.

Requirements:

• Items to be laundered first (please make sure garments are clean and mostly wrinkle-free!)
• Woolen items with moth holes must be sealed in a bag, frozen for 1 week to kill any potential larvae

Covid-19 Protocol: Please note that each Fibershed workshop may have different covid-19 protocols based on the teacher's requests.

Due to the continued uncertainty and unpredictability of Covid, and in order to keep everyone safe, we require all participants to wear masks (double-layer fabric mask or a proper n-95) and practice 6’ social distancing. We are also offering a limited number of spots available per mending session. Although our main mending area is indoors, we also have a deck and various outdoor workspaces that can be utilized as weather permits. Proof of full vaccination plus booster is required (for our February sessions, rapid tests will be available for non-boosted individuals). Make sure you have documentation saved on your phone to show upon arrival. You will not be able to participate without it.