Guides and tips

There’s lots of ways to mend and patch clothes. We commonly use hand sewing for darning, visible mending, embroidery. We also use the sewing machine for some mends. At sessions we bring along books, samples, equipment, scraps and threads. Since running our workshops we see common issues that come up and do blogs and posts on facebook sharing solutions.

If you taking up sewing for the first time, we have put together this guide on the sewing kit and our guides below which will get you started. If you have a sewing machine, we also have these to help you:

We also have written Book reviews on our favourites to help you find the mending book for you. If you come along to one of our sessions, we bring along a selection of these books for you to look at.

Mending techniques

There is a big craft movement for Visible mending, usually using Japanese Sashiko and boro stitching to patch to celebrate used clothes and by adding patches celebrating its age and history.

Patching: Guide on how to get started patching your clothes.
Darning: Darning holes in socks used to be popular and Ealing Repair cafe is bringing it back with this how to.
Embroidery: Use over patches and stains to decorate and mend clothes.
Knee patching: One of the most popular mends are trousers needing attention at the knees.
Jeans mending: Another of our popular issues is mending jeans. We have done a blog with most of our mends.
Trainer mends: Darning can also cover trainers that have got a hole in.
Leggings mend to the crotch
Sugru: A new type of mend: When you need a mouldable flexible mend, sugru is the way to go.