A woven patch on blue denim. The darn was woven in a loose rainbow pattern, switching between vertical blocks of colour from green, through several shades of blue, to yellow, orange, red, and purple.

Swift Mending Migration ft. Linda of White Lake

Hi mendfriends! I'm delighted to introduce Linda, another wonderful Mending Migration host. Linda, like many of us, finds community in the bright, hopeful, Visible Mending corners of the internet as she does her bit to keep the culture of "Repair, Don't Replace" alive and well, even as it feels like so much of our world is falling into disrepair.

Linda finds great joy in fixing things, and has a reputation for repairing all manner of shoes, baskets, bedsheets, and anything else that catches her eye. She mends "for many reasons! I hate shopping in general and am really bothered by the consumerism that drives the fashion industry, so I mend in order to prolong the life of my clothing – so that it stays out of the landfill and so I don’t have to shop for more!"

Handmade with what we already have

Swift Darning Loom set up for weaving. It is warped with beige yarn with a white cardstock spacer at the bottom. The same yarn used for warping is off to the left of the image, alongside a pair of snips, a Weft Pick, and a tiny Swift Shuttle. To the left of the scene is an array of colourful yarn odds and ends making up a colour palette reminiscent of sunset beside a forested lake.

Linda didn't mention this specifically, but as someone who also has big feelings about shopping and consumerism, I love to make gifts and just generally fill my time with creating, not consuming. Especially when I can use bits and bobs and found objects I don't have to buy new! Linda used the travelling Darning and Weaving bundle to its full extent to craft this lovely little tapestry, which I'll pop here as an interlude to all the mending.

Mini tapestry pictured on a chevron deck background. Geometric blocks of teal, brown, salmon, and beige are stacked above a long beige fringe. The top half shows off a variegated yarn of the same colours in a chunky weave. The tapestry is mounted on a short twig with a beige hanging loop.

"So many things have a lot of life in them once you fix them up a bit"

The first mend that Linda remembers doing was a hole in the knee of her jeans when she was about 13 years old. "I simply sewed a piece of paisley fabric behind the hole - my first visible mend!!"

She has repaired many things since then, but the Mending Migration was her first go at darning. Even though she's wanted to try darning for ages, "the intimidation factor was high" says Linda.

"The loom made things so easy!"

It's true: all the photos on this blog document Linda's very first forays into darning! With help from the Swift Darning Loom and video tutorials, she did a great job patching these socks, wouldn't you agree?

Red-and-white colourwork sock, before and afer. Left side shows the worn-out heel, threadbare with a small hole in the centre. The image on the right shows the repair finished, a darn woven with the Swift Darning loom in variegated red, white, and green yarn.

Rainbow Repair on jeans

One of the best things about the Mending Migration is hearing personal mending stories from our hosts. Linda asked her sister to bring something in need of mending and here's what happened!

"My sister brought over a pair of denim “shorts” with a hole in the knee – yes, she calls them shorts, but they have a knee, haha!  I guess technically they are shorter than capris.  Anyway, I had asked her if she had anything for me to mend while I had the Swift, because I really only had socks.  She didn’t care how I fixed it, but she loves colour, so I knew she would want it to be colourful.  

Swift Darning Loom images side by side. Left: the long work surface is set up to darn a hole in blue denim. The patch area is outlined in blue pen. Right side, held by a pale-skinned hand, the loom is warped in grey yarn across all 14 hooks.

I ended up doing a very wide darn across the knee, using the long work surface on the Swift and opening up one of the side seams.  The warp was a very light grey and I used about 6 different colours for the weft - just blocks of colour, in different sizes.  Semi-rainbow, but not technically exact.

Close-up of a giant rainbow darn on blue denim. The colour spectrum goes from green on the left, repeating to end in purple on the right side. A "before" image, imposed on top and framed by a white drop shadow, shows the ripped knee outlined in blue pen prior to darning.

Overall I was pleased with the mend, except for the area where I pulled the weft threads too tight."

On the reverse side (pictured below), you can see how Linda strengthened the worn-out knee with a fabric patch, stitched in place around the edges as well as around the hole. The darn is decorative and serves to add a little extra reinforcement to the area.

The inside view of this rainbow patch on denim. Long tails of yarn in various colours splay out from a white fabric patch that was sewn inside the garment to reinforce the blue denim.

What is the most important thing that someone who is just getting started needs to know about mending?

Linda reminds us, "Mending is accessible to anyone.  Your mends don’t have to be visible and they don’t have to be perfect.  They only have to be pleasing to you, and somewhat durable."

And there are so many ways to get there! The key is to practice, and find ways to overcome that "intimidation factor". 

I'll editorialize Linda's response to add that mending in good company helps, too ;) happy mending, everyone.

A khaki-coloured dog with white paws sitting on a black sofa looks into the camera. There is a blue ball of yarn and a Weft Pick held under the dog's paws. In the foreground, out of focus, is the rainbow patch on blue denim in-progress with just the green stripe completed. The image was taken in portrait mode but edited to landscape orientation by adding vertical sections of the same image, distorted and blurred, to both sides.

 

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