shakedown.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A community for live music fans with roots in the jam scene. Shakedown Social is run by a team of volunteers (led by @clifff and @sethadam1) and funded by donations.

Administered by:

Server stats:

268
active users

#visiblemending

20 posts9 participants0 posts today

These pants had four big holes when I woke up yesterday, nearly destroyed. I was ready to toss them, but he wanted to keep them. So I skimmed a book called “Mending Matters” by Katerina Rodabaugh, and then I drempt about mending them. So when I woke up, I mended them. Now they have no big holes, and I have sore fingers.

I still want to do more sashiko stitching over the two worn parts on the right, but that’ll have to wait until my fingers heal. He can still wear them in the mean time. #sewing #visiblemending

Continued thread

Finished it all today, with some small breaks. And this is why I need to get more #Embroidery floss soon. Visible mending. 😅

While I only needed to mend a small part I decided to do it all along the edge for future strengthening!

Oh, I also got to practice how to switch thread 2 times, and make it secure and I think I did pretty good, I made some doubles on the top but it looks quite neat.

Another #sashiko pajama butt mend—a variation on jūjizashi. I probably should have drawn my base grid slightly smaller but the fact that I got this done during a liver infection means done is better than perfect. #VisibleMending

An excellent article that touches upon stitches, #embroidery, #Sashiko, and patches!

What is #VisibleMending? +5 Simple Techniques

April 18, 2024 | Kathryn Kellogg

"One of the most sustainable things you can do is just use what you have. That pertains to clothing items too: Simply shopping your closet first can make a big impact.

"Why? Well, did you know there are enough clothes on the planet right now to dress the next six generations of humanity?"

Learn more:
goingzerowaste.com/blog/visibl

Going Zero Waste · What is Visible Mending? +5 Simple Techniques - Going Zero WasteCurious about visible mending? Here's what it is and the most common forms of visible mending, along with helpful tutorials.

#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending

Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025

"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.

"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.

" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'

"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.

"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.

"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.

"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.

"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.

" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.

"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'

"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'

"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'

yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/s

Yahoo Life · Stitch it, don’t ditch it: Resisting fast fashion through visible mendingBy Kaja Šeruga for Reasons to be Cheerful
Continued thread

Last hole patched! The patch was from a favorite baseball cap of my spouse. The cap was worn out - pretty much just falling apart. But I saved the embroidered bit from the front of the cap, thinking I'd find something to do with it eventually. And I did!
OK, where was I … oh, the frayed cuffs! 😂 The cuffing I ordered was too much the wrong color, so waiting on another order.

#Visiblemending My son used to chew on his clothes. It has taken me a long time to repair his sheets and my darning isn't good enough, so bias tape it is.

This took me a bit more than an hour, and a new sheet would cost about 30 euro.

Replied in thread

Well, I am now absolutely fed up with mending, and am ready to leave the rest for another day. This one big flower does please me, though. The patch is on the underside and I trimmed the worn through and torn top layer as a sort of reverse appliqué.

Replied in thread

Well, this is going to take roughly forever. The patches are all large enough that I'll want to cross them over with something, but also it's just a little bit of a hassle, and there's so much of it. I'm probably going to run out of thread before I'm done, too! 😅