Spring always seems like a good time of year to get some mending done. Since I have finished off my exams and the weather is getting warmer, I have officially started the slightly frenzied process of cleaning the house and baking up a storm. The sun has given me way too much energy, which means that I have been spending my days reorganizing things that don't need to be reorganized and baking even when my freezer is completely full.
Thankfully, this energy also means that I am finally starting to make a dent on the huge mending pile that I acquired over the winter. I have many hems that need to be fixed after getting caught on boot zippers, some dresses that I never fully finished the inside of, and a few quilts with tiny rips (mostly thanks to a loving cat whose claws are much sharper than he realizes). The last thing on my mending list is this pillowcase, which is almost completely falling apart but is so soft that I just can't let it go.
You can't see the damage in these photos, but the patches that I have put on the pillowcase so far don't even come close to covering all of the tiny little tears in the delicate fabric. We have had this pillowcase and it's matching quilt since before I can remember, and it has followed us to multiple different homes and now it has come to university with me. You might be able to tell in the close ups, but this set is fully hand sewn as well! I couldn't just throw out a painstakingly hand sewn quilt without at least trying to patch it up a little (...or a lot). So far I am working on covering up the largest tears with patches of linen and quilting cotton, little scraps of fabrics that I love and are left over from projects. I am trying to keep the same colours that the original quilt fabric has, light greens and blues and pinks.
I love the look of a well-patched quilt, so I actually really love that some of the patches are really obvious, like this turquoise rabbit patch. I am not worried about them being perfect, so I am just cutting and folding them by eye, no ruler necessary. I think it adds to the imperfect nature of mending, and it makes it look well loved (which it really has been). Plus, doing this in such a calm way is really meditative. I am not worried about my stitches being the exact same tiny length, or about the patches being perfectly rectangle or square. I am not even worried about matching the thread, since the best part of quilts are all of the fun colours in my mind.
At first looking at all of the damage in the fabric was a little bit daunting. Every time I pick it up to keep working on it, I seem to find more and more rips. By the end of this you might not even be able to see the original fabric underneath all of my mending! But it has been so calming to pick it up and pick which fabric to make new patches out of that now it is a pleasure to pick it up while I watch tv.
Working on all of this hand sewing has also given me the chance to use my new tea cup pin cushion that my mom made for me out of one of our old tea cups! It is so adorable, and the fabric she used for the pin cushion part is also one of the fabrics that I am using for patch material. The little foxes on the print make me so happy, and they work perfectly for spring.
Are you a spring mender, or do you just get it done when you need to?
~K
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