Mending Workshop Gives Old Clothes New Life

When I was a freshman in college, I bought a light brown corduroy shirt that I wore nonstop until graduating — it was my favorite shirt. When I got out of school and went through my closet, I ended up stuffing that old shirt into a black trash bag during my hasty exfil from my college apartment.

Fast forward 10 years to when I saw a poster for a visible mending workshop the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society was hosting, and I dug that black trash bag out of storage and found my favorite shirt. It was pretty beat up, there were a few missing buttons, and the elbows were particularly threadbare (it had endured more than a few skateboard wipeouts). The advertisement for the Ag Society workshop read “Are your Carhartt jackets looking a little worse for the wear? Are your sweaters full of holes? Bring all your old and worn-down clothes to the Ag Hall and we’ll learn to mend them together!”

I was excited to get my shirt back in action. Based on the advertisement, I figured I would have multiple options to choose from in regards to the elbows on the shirt, and although I had sewed buttons in home economics class in elementary school, I definitely needed a refresher. When I arrived at the Ag Hall, my friend Lucy, who works for the Ag Society and put together the workshop, greeted me with a pair of light blue shorts that they were planning on patching up with some pretty floral fabrics and some doilies to line the pockets. I said hi to Dalila Bennett of Fire Cat Farm, who hosted the class, and they led me over to a big basket of fabrics of various colors and kinds.

There were some solid contenders in the basket: a mix of paisleys and geometric patterns that I really dug. But the pattern that won me over was a mint green and pale-yellow mix of ferns and bright bluebells that would stand out perfectly over my light brown shirt. After bringing the two squares of fabric (already perfectly cut, which did factor into my final choice) back to the craft table, I placed them on the elbows of my shirt and lined them up to make sure they were in the center of the sleeve. Dalila suggested that I use what they called a “baste stitch” to temporarily hold the fabric in place before doing my final stitch. After stitching a sloppy square of white thread into the center of the patch, I was ready to move on to the permanent stitch.

As the group was chatting and sewing away, Dalila told me they were always a crafty kid, and got into embroidery and needle felting through their mother, who passed down her longtime passion for all things needlework and textile arts. A few years ago, Dalila started making custom clothes using upcycled materials. “I would see a cool dress or a pair of pants, and I just had this thought ‘I could probably make this for myself,’” Dalila said. On top of running Fire Cat Farm alongside Casey Mazar-Kelley, Dalila has started a custom clothing brand, Slowhoneyy.

I worked my way through stitching both patches onto the elbows of my favorite shirt, and was surprised at how simple the process was. I did not prove myself to be a naturally gifted sewer, but completing this project inspired me. It made me think back to my days of home economics class, replacing buttons and using a sewing machine to make a rather lopsided pair of pajamas with multicolored racecars doing loop-de-loops across the legs (my parents would say the pants made me run faster). I think I’ll go buy a sewing kit and try my luck stitching some buttons onto my revitalized shirt, and will maybe even plan on crafting another pair of pajamas (sans racecars).

Whether you are looking to neaten up some of your worn out clothes or just want to add some spice to an outfit, mending keeps things out of the garbage and in your wardrobe rotation. Instead of throwing away your ripped jeans or tattered sweater, look for more mending workshops on the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society event page.