Since we have started our visible mending service of your much loved knits, we have been inundated with so many mending requests, we love the fact that so many people want to save their knitwear from going into landfill. We also like to encourage people to repair, reuse, repurpose and upcycle their clothing.
We thought to share some of the great examples of visible mending we have done, what is great about these requests, is everyone is individual and has unique ideas, colour choices and stitch options, making every mend unique. The most common request is darning, which I love doing, it adds character, as well as structure. The bright contrast colours uplifts plain designs.
Having damaged knitwear, does not mean it is the end of the world, in fact, it is the beginning of a new chapter for your knitwear, especially when the piece is transformed, take this example of covering up a stain, using contrast colour, embroidery techniques.
In the past before fast fashion, it was widely popular to mend, repair, reuse and upcycle clothing, people valued garments and took care of them, however, there is a resurgence of the repair service, this is where we can help.
More examples of waste yarn, contrast colour repairs are here. This customer requested to copy the colours on the bright jumper to make a feature of the contrast colours.
Visible mending is essentially highlighting the damaged area that needs repair, whether it is with a contrast colour, using a variety of sewing techniques. The following repair, the customer wanted a start motif, to hide a large hole, the colours were contrast but more subtle to match the existing jumper. This is a great example of creating new designs with repair.
There are many interesting ways to visible mend your items, it does not always have to be on knitwear, although we specialise in knitted garments, we also have uplifted woven pieces.
This example uses satin stitch in bright colours, hiding the wear and tears of the garments and bringing new life, to be enjoyed for many years to come.
We have also been asked to do interesting Japanese Sashiko mending on much loved jeans, it is not our usual category of style we do, but we wanted to help where we can. Here is a great example of utilising waste yarn to create lovely designs. This design was a simple criss cross effect, using surplus cotton yarn, having a patch of fabric under, to reinforce the structure. This certainly has beautified the damaged trouser.
A recent request we have had was very unusual, but we jumped to the challenge when it came to saving items from landfill. This was a hole in a knitted shoe, from a shoe repair shop, that was not able to carry out the knitted elements of this. The customer wanted to match the colour of the shoe, which we did, it is still visible, only slightly, but we are happy that the item is usable and this darning repair lasts very well.
A great example of darning, is doing so in a lovely motif style, not just a square, this customer wanted a heart on the sleeve, which is very poetic, we enjoyed this repair, although takes longer, it certainly worth it.
Not every item that needs a repair has a hole, it could be a stain, or a simple tired plain item that needs uplifting, so a great example of this, is duplicate stitch, where you emulate the stitch below into interesting motifs, could be created into many shapes and colours, this great technique takes some practice, but once the principles are understood it is worth it.
Although we are happy to mend, repair, upcycle, recycle etc for customers, we always encourage for customers to try to do this themselves, with that, we occasionally have live visible mending, darning workshops, keep an eye for our next one on our events page here. Workshops are irregular but keep posted on our newsletter
