No. 4: What I would mend first
A drawer of other people's buttons, and a plan for yours.
A short letter this week, because most of it went into thread.
This week
I spent Tuesday afternoon at Ines’s mending shopfront in Northgate, as a kind of apprentice with no skills, and came away with a list.
What to mend first, in her order:
- The elbow that is about to go. Prevention is cheaper than repair. If the knit has gone thin and shiny, reinforce it before the hole.
- The sock you like. The darning takes an hour and the sock is yours for years.
- The button that is hanging by a thread. Five minutes now or a lost button next month.
- The hem that has come down. The simplest repair there is, and the one that makes the biggest difference to how a garment looks.
One thing to do
Open the drawer where broken things go. Pick one. Decide whether you want to mend it, and say the reason aloud. The first thing I noticed is that a lot of my reasons were “someone gave me this”, which is not the same as wanting it.
A word about buttons
Ines keeps a drawer of orphan buttons. She estimates that one in four is matched to a garment within a year, and she gets unreasonably pleased when it happens. She has a name for the ones that never find a shirt. I have promised not to repeat it.
A small thing. She will be writing for Longhand soon. Until then, if you have a darn you are proud of, reply and send a photograph.
N.