Marimekko River Quilt Update and Me-Mending

Since making a more conscious effort to create a hand-made wardrobe over five years ago I have taken part in an annual event called Me Made May set up by Zoe from So Zo blog. For MMM you pledge a personal challenge for May relating to your own me-made wardrobe and things you want to achieve or address over the course of a month. My pledge this year is:

I will write a separate post about my first week of MMM tomorrow so I can focus on my me-mending today. It was like I had jinxed myself by specifically mentioning me-mended items because this week two items I have made ended up needing mending!

The first item is a beloved Camber Set Top which I made in May 2016 from a lovely soft, drapey viscose. Both the shoulder French seams have burst open and started fraying as you can see in the photos below. A similar thing happened to the neckline which I mended with black bias tape.

To fix the fraying shoulders I used a zig-zag stitch a few times over the area to strengthen and pull together the seams. Next, I pinned a length of black bias tape I luckily had in my stash and used a straight stitch to secure it over the shoulder seam hiding the mending and continued down the sleeve to create a 'design-feature'!

I was really happy how this turned out!
The second fix I did was a very straight forward mend. I caught my Christine Haynes Emery dress (made in September 2017) on a door at work and it ripped the side-seam near the pocket. It was a simple seam fix and I reinforced it with some zig-zag stitching too. I didn't take a photo of the finished fix because you couldn't really see it (I guess that was the idea!).

I also wanted to update you on my Marimekko River quilt. I attended another 'finish the quilt' session with Jenny Haynes at Village Haberdashery in West Hampstead where Jenny taught me how to bind my quilt. I finished hand-stitching the binding this afternoon and I am very happy how it looks. I will still hand-quilt and embroider sections of the 'river' whenever I feel an urge to do some stitching during the remainder of the year. I started the quilt-top in a class with Jenny in April 2017, so it has taken some time to come together. What I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Be warned, there are lots of photos!

Mending; Love it or Loathe it?

I have always mended my own, family and friends clothes over the years. It is one of those jobs that seems to automatically gravitate towards you as a keen sewer. My usual mindset on this is I don't mind doing these little repair and alteration jobs but I would rather be making something shiny and new. I decided this morning that I should be more positive about mending and see it as a mindful and mediative activity.

Enter two jobs that have been hanging around for a while.

First up a work shirt with a missing button repair completed.

The second item was my Merchant and Mills Camber Set top that I made last year which ended up looking like this after the first wash.

As you can see the bias-bound neck frayed as I must have trimmed back the seams inside the neckband too zealously for the viscose to survive the washing machine. I didn't have any of the ikat-style print left so rather than unpick and re-insert another band I decided to trim back the fraying fabric and hand-stitch some black bias-binding around the neckline.

The original neckline bias can still be seen so I made sure the black bias-binding was an even distance all the way around to create a 'feature'! I really like the finished effect and glad I can put this top back into my wardrobe.

What do you think about repair jobs?

Do you love them or loathe them?