My two primary needlework loves, embroidery and knitting, are always vying for attention. In the past few years I’ve spent my winters mostly knitting and my summers mostly embroidering. But even in the midst of winter knitting, I still embroider, sometimes on a piece of knitwear and sometimes to creatively mend clothing. I like having a small embroidery project like this that provides a change for my mind & for my hands.
Embroidermending springs from a wish to save clothes from the garbage bin, save my budget from additional clothing expenditures, and express myself in my clothing style. I’ve been so happy to see the growing trend towards visible mending!
Mending has a long history. Much of it has been aimed at fixing a ripped or worn fabric so that the mend is NOT visible. Girls practiced darning stitches that would make the fabric look as it did before it was torn. Here are two photos of my mother’s practice work in a needlework project book she made as part of her teacher education in Quebec in 1946. The first sample shows a variety of darning stitches which would be invisible when done in the same colour as the background fabric, and the second sample shows a start at a weaving mend (you can see the bottom right corner of the patch has 3 threads carefully woven into the background fabric, this would be done all the way around the patch to weave it into the background invisibly).
In contrast to these invisible mending techniques, Japanese boro patchwork with sashiko stitching is the most visible type of mending I can think of, and this historical method has inspired the current visible mending trend. Boro textiles were formed by using scrap fabrics to patch other items, using sashiko darning stitch patterns to hold the layers together (historically mostly white running stitch on indigo fabrics). I first learned about sashiko in 2013 or so, when I was a volunteer at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. One of the other volunteers, Nell Coleman, an expert in sashiko design and stitching, led workshops for us to learn sashiko stitching and make blocks for what became this fabulous sashiko stitched quilt. If you’re interested in learning more about boro & sashiko, here’s an interesting article on the Upcycle Stitches website.
Visible mending generally accentuates the mend, making it obvious that this is a repaired item of clothing. Usually my approach is to mend & embellish at the same time, so that the area looks like a decoration, not obviously a mend. I like both approaches, I just have more fun with a variety of embroidery motifs. In the case of my husband’s 2 pairs of pants below, you can see two different approaches: 1) Grey Jeans: I added a piece of fabric inside the knee to provide extra strength, and worked a swirling embroidery design through both layers in simple running stitch. Then I trimmed the interior patch and worked a blanket stitch around the edges to prevent fraying. 2) Blue Jeans: I added a darker blue denim rectangle behind the frayed knee and worked machine zigzag stitch in a zigzag manner across the knee. This one ended up looking vaguely like a landscape!
Grey Jeans - Spirals
Grey Jeans - Right Knee
Grey Jeans - Left Knee
Blue Jeans - Machine Mending
Blue Jeans - landscape?
I like to improvise a design, looking at the area that needs
mending and coming up with a flower or other pattern. Sometimes I use a
bit of thread of the same colour as the fabric to mend the holes first,
then I go ahead with the embroidery, or I’ll just use the embroidery
itself to fix the hole. Examples three and four show flower motifs on two t-shirts. 3) The navy t-shirt has one largish flower worked in stem stitch with French knots. It later ended up with another tiny hole just outside the initial flower, so I added to the embroidery, making a larger more colourful flower. 4) The pink t-shirt already had a lot of colourful machine embroidery, so I made a vine of flowers in similar colours (yes, each one of those flowers represents a hole in the fabric!).
Navy t-shirt - original flower
Original Flower close-up
Navy t-shirt - expanded flower
Expanded Flower close-up
Pink t-shirt - meandering flowers
Meandering flowers close-up
Example five shows a design where I’m getting more carried away with an embroidery story. I don’t remember exactly where the hole was, but now there’s a tiny grey stick figure person climbing up a silver ladder, reaching for a gold pinwheel, rocket, and star, while behind them an exuberant vine of flowers is growing up the ladder and beyond. If only the person would turn around!
It is so liberating to embellish an item of clothing, feeling that I’m helping to reduce fashion waste at the same time that I’m showing the world who I am! The stitches I use most often are very simple: stem stitch, French knots, satin stitch, lazy daisy stitch and chain stitch. Join in, get expressive with your mending! If you’d like to comment or ask questions, please do so on my Facebook page.
embroidermending
visiblemending
embroidery-improv
Quite a while ago, I pushed myself too hard making a new hat design, and ended up with tendonitis in my left wrist (my dominant hand). I had to completely stop doing any knitting or embroidery, and I discovered how many ordinary household activities required the use of my left hand! Eight months later, with some great physio and much less hand-straining activity altogether due to the pandemic lock-down, the wrist finally healed enough that I tried a bit of machine sewing — urged on by the need for non-medical face masks for my family.
I had to pace myself, so couldn’t get into production work, but I made 11 masks for family, and wanted to share my experience of the 3 patterns I’ve tried. Since I didn’t want to go fabric shopping during the pandemic, I used fabrics & elastic from my stash. I ran out of elastic pretty quickly, but then I salvaged elastic from a fitted bed sheet that had worn out. I do love to re-use what I can — this elastic was fairly soft, 1/4” wide, and I ended up folding it lengthwise & sewing it with a zigzag stitch to make it 1/8” wide, which is much more comfortable to wear. All of the following patterns are good, but you’ll see that Design 3 is my personal favourite.
Design 1: The Olson Mask, which is the fuchsia mask pictured in the centre above (pattern https://www.unitypoint.org/cedarrapids/filesimages/Coronavirus/Olson%20Mask%20with%20Pattern%20v4.pdf and instructional video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnVk12sFRkY ) — designed by clinicians from Unity Point Health in Cedar Rapids Iowa, for volunteers to make for the hospital. It is fitted, has a nose piece, has a pocket for a filter, and uses elastic ear loops. It is very good, but I found that it was a bit small and didn’t slope into the face quite enough (the hospital workers would use it with double-sided face tape to seal it to the face). I made several of these masks for my husband & daughter & me, they work fine, but I did keep looking for another design to try.
Design 2: The Rosie mask, a pleated design which is the turquoise mask pictured on the right side above (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THkdyBD8mTY for pattern and instructions) — it also has a filter pocket & nose wire, but has ties to go around the head. I made this one for myself, and tried it on but found the fabric ties much too annoying (slipping out of place and being too easy to painfully tie up bits of hair in the bow). Also I found the pleated design made for a bit too much extra fabric that got in the way of breathing (maybe I’m just not great at adjusting the pleats, or maybe this mask is better as an outer layer over an N95 mask). So, I cut off the ties & added a casing to be able to have elastic ear loops. I’ve worn it a couple of times since then, and it’s fine — it covers all the needed areas very well. The added casing with elastic ear loops also makes it sit much closer to the cheeks so that air doesn’t escape out the sides.
Design 3: This is the mask I’ve been happiest with so far, it’s the Best Fit Facemask by PrettyHandyGirl (tutorial & pattern https://www.prettyhandygirl.com/best-fit-facemask/ ). It is the flowered mask on the left in the pictures of the three masks together above Design 1, and I’ve shown two more masks in navy dragonfly and light blue chambray fabrics in the photos just above this section. The mask is similar in shape to the Olson mask, but it goes up a bit higher under the eyes, is nicely fitted under the chin, and the very best part is that it has adjustable ear elastics. The pattern has two sizes: large & medium — so far I’ve made a large for my husband, nephew & brother-in-law, and a medium for me. The designer’s advice about fabrics, nose wires, and elastics is very helpful. I had used pipe cleaners for the nose wires in the Olson and Rosie masks, but with this mask I used coffee bag bendy ties, which I find hold their shape better than pipe cleaners. The ear elastics are made adjustable by passing the elastic ends through a craft bead which can then be moved to shorten or lengthen the loop — a brilliant idea that works very well! The only change I made to this pattern is that I made the lining to just cover the cheek ends, with the filter pocket overlapping a bit (I took this idea from the Olson mask pattern) — I didn’t want to make a full lining and then a filter pocket over that, as I think that 3 layers + a filter would make it too difficult to breathe. This is definitely the most comfortable and best fitting mask of the three designs, I highly recommend it to other makers!
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The final hat of winter! This one is knit with yarn from Fair Sun Farm, the second local organic farm I mentioned in my previous blog post. Marnie & Patrick grow organic vegetables and flowers, and Marnie sells them at Brockville’s summer outdoor farmers’ market. They also raise Canadian Arcott and Ile de France sheep, and have had two types of yarn milled from their wool (a Lopi soft spun and a Bulky 6-strand unspun). The mill they use is Custom Woolen Mills near Carstairs, Alberta. I bought 2 skeins of their undyed (cream) Lopi yarn. It’s a rustic yarn, thick and quite soft, with tiny dried plant bits still stuck in it here and there. This is a yarn that makes you feel close to the spirit of sheep — you can almost hear it Baa.
Vision: My first idea for using this yarn was to make a fairly plain hat base that could show off an over-the-top design made with some of the multitude of white/cream/beige buttons I have collected over the years (white buttons being the most common on clothing, any button stash ends up with a preponderance of white). I was thinking of something visually inspired by cockney button outfits, but with a cream base (I’ve always liked white on white designs).
Shaping the Hat: All of that creamy wool made me think of snowy mountains, so I pictured a hat with a peak and ridges. I also wanted to incorporate a headband that would hug the ears. I started knitting from the top (as always) and worked downwards, forming a hat shape with a tall narrow peak and intermittent ridges. When I got down to the headband I used short rows (technique alert!) to work cosy coverings for the ears. I first learned to knit short rows several decades ago, from a Patons beret pattern where short rows were used to shape the classic beret top and underfold. I think of it as knitting architecturally, shaping forms with partial rows and eliminating the need to sew sections together. I expanded my knowledge last year when I discovered a great book, Knitting Short Rows: Techniques for Great Shapes and Angles. Who knew that there were many different styles of short row methods (Japanese, German, Yarnover, Wrap & Turn, Twin-Stitch)? I adapted an ear hugging shape I learned from this book, then finished the headband with two ridge rows. Now I was ready for button madness!
Sidetrack: Okay, I know that I thought this hat was going to be all about the buttons, but while I was making the base this vision of tiny mountain climbers or skiers on the slopes of the hat kept intruding. I visited our local antique treasure shop looking for metal figurines, but I could only find tiny military figures. I checked online and discovered a whole new area of obsession I hadn’t known anything about: HO scale figurines for model train hobbyists. These would probably work, but I would have to order them … how long would it take to get them and how would I attach them? Hmm.
Back to buttons: I reluctantly gave up on the figurine idea. Tried out various configurations of cream and white buttons of many sizes, with and without a statement button, then with fewer buttons and some small beads. Not happy with any of these arrangements, so button madness went into the brain file for future use. Next I tried a more restrained set of beads, just along the upper headband ridge. Some colour (tiny flowers!), some cream, and one gold star.
Much better, but a bit too restrained, so I added a chain stitch line of variegated green yarn in between the beads, and made a pompom out of both yarns with some beads mixed in (bonus: the pompom added enough weight to make the long peak flop over, since the hat was no longer going to be a tall ski mountain sculpture).
Colour Balance: The cream expanse between the headband ridge and the pompom needed to have some green … so I played with various green yarn line designs. It got a bit out of hand!
Final Expression: I let it sit in my head for a while. And a while longer. Then I thought, maybe this hat is all about winter AND the promise of spring … flowers blooming on a snowy mountain? I drafted and positioned a few flowers with the green yarn, then embroidered and beaded two that seemed just right: one smallish flower stemming from the gold star at the left temple, and one large flower stemming from above the right ear. Ta dah! Done, happy to have reached the final expression after an unusually twisty journey.
Of course, that mountain climber idea is still calling me. I’ll probably have to order a few and work on realizing that vision. Maybe it’ll lead to a whole new line of knit sculptures or fantasy hats!
https://www.fairsunfarm.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/FairSunFarm/
http://www.customwoolenmills.com/
Local-Yarn
Short-Rows
Winter-Hats
