If it's broken, fix it!

My favorite pair of jeans got a hole. Not just a small one. A heartbreaking rip sounded as a hole as big as my hand appeared on the inside of my crotch. The fabric had worn thin after years of wear and wash and finally it gave way. While I was examining the hole exposing my thigh, I was wondering what to do next.

In the past I just threw away any clothes that broke, but this was my favorite pair of jeans! I couldn’t get myself to throw them out, even though I knew I would not be able to replace them. In a way, favorite jeans are like unicorns - magical beings that come into your life only rarely, but they can change your fate forever! At least that’s what it was like for me. So instead of discarding them, I started looking into ways to mend my jeans.

Since then I came to realize that mending has become something of a lost art. Sure, my mum taught me how to sew a button back on, but nothing further than that. None of my friends or colleagues ever mended their own clothes. When I walk around town, the only people running around with patches on their knees are little children - and half of those are added for aesthetic reasons only. There is no public awareness of mending things, no culture of repair, because everything is easily replaced. Well, almost everything.

So I set out to learn how to mend my jeans. Luckily, there is a small bubble on the internet keeping the art of mending alive (of course there is). Not just sewing buttons back on - you can learn how to fill the holes in your socks, reinforce the underarm area of your woolen sweaters, and how to patch up your favorite jeans. To normalize mending in the public eye, visible mending has become it’s own trend here - colorful patches, visible seams and embroidery to cover up holes can help to show off your skills.

For my first project I used jeans fabric from another old pair of jeans to patch and reinforce the inside of my thigh area. I just cut out a triangle and attached it from the inside with a thread the same color as my jeans. The result is an invisible reinforcement covering the hole from the inside. While working on the thighs, I noticed other areas of my jeans were also starting to wear out. Here I opted for some visible mending and used fabric from an old blouse in addition to the jeans. I cut out some circles, arranged them into a pattern and just sewed them on. This way I had multiple patches that can move flexibly against each other, instead of one big inflexible patch.

At the beginning I was a bit self-conscious about wearing these pants out. Would I get weird looks? Would people notice? Well, the answer is - no! No fashion police came to arrest me. No one cared about my pants. Would I wear them to the office? Probably not. But they are still my favorite jeans and I am looking forward to more mending in the future to keel them by my side!

There’s this old saying “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it!”. The opposite applies, too. If it’s broken, don’t just throw it away, DO fix it!

Is there something in your life that you would like to mend? Here are some further (external) resources that helped me learn to mend my own clothes:

visiblemending.com, a visible mending overview page with inspiring images, repair kits and materials.

WikiHow.com, a whole WikiHow article dedicated to fixing the crotch area of your jeans.

visible creative mending by collingwoodnorrisdesign.com, colorful repairs by a knitwear designer and mending expert.

repairfect.com, a page dedicated to repairing things including tutorials and equipment guides.

mendingchurch.com, tutorials by the ‘Church of Mending’, which is a hilarious name.

There is no affiliation between this blog and any of the linked mending resources. Please let me know if any of the links stop working and proceed at your own risk. Have fun exploring!