Text from infographic:

Out with the old?
In a world where credit cards, online ordering, fast fashion, and overnight delivery make it easy to replace the old, torn, and tattered, is there any place for mending or darning?

Ask the person whose favorite sweater has a hole in the elbow how she feels about parting with it.

Or the one whose sleeping socks sprung a hole in the heel. No others will do when the cold air seeps in under the blankets and grabs at his toes.

It can be hard to let go.

Maybe you don’t have to.

With a few simple tools and stitches, you can mend and darn the treasured clothing you’re not ready to part with.

In mending a pair of sleeping socks, the darning mushroom is slipped into the sock, the fabric/hole is stretched over the mushroom cap, and a series of running stitches build a cross-hatch weave, filling the hole.

So what’s the difference between mending and darning?

Mending is repair: replacing a zipper, restitching a dropped hem, sewing a button back in place, or adding a patch to a cover a hole.

Darning weaves thread into the existing fabric to rebuild a hole.

There is visible mending where the repair can be seen (like the sock), and invisible mending, where the repair is not seen.

Spend some time mending and you may find you’ve stitched together something larger than a tear or hole in a piece of fabric.

©2023 WaystationWhistle
• Text and photos by Christine Richards
• Stitching sampler from Handicraft for Girls, McGlaufin, Library of Congress

Buttoned Up
When I pulled out my sewing supplies last Saturday, they were a jumbled mess of fabric, thread, tools, scissors, and pins randomly packed in boxes and bins. Embarrassing, really.

So with a button-load of patience, I focused and was able to stack and separate the good from the bad. Toss things that were broken, and put like items together in proper order. But I couldn't part with the buttons.

They're colorful. Cheerful even. Like little gems.

And with some of them, I remember the piece of clothing they were once stitched to. Like that yellow button in the middle. It was from a wrap-around skirt I had in high school. A floral Madras print. It was comfortable, and I thought, very stylish. When I wore it down to its last fiber, I cut off the buttons and saved them.

The button jar is a small jar. I keep it and most of the buttons because I think I might use them again. Maybe, maybe not.

Is there something you collect or save that you can't part with? What is it?