When I was rooting through my closet the other day to find a jacket I had packed away last spring, I came upon a bag of "needs mending" clothes. Admittedly, I am a person who used to either donate clothes in need of mending to charity or simply toss them (especially in the case of socks). Even though I sew and was taught at an early age not to waste anything, I still had a habit of buying new socks or a new shirt if mending needed to take place. In the past, I have mended for friends and family members, but never even considered doing the same for myself. I think that I psychologically fell into a gray-area with my own clothing where I considered it "work" to mend something of my own, but I considered it "helpful" to mend for other people. I'm a little angry at myself for adopting this attitude. Although some might say a needy person would have benefitted from my donating the bag of clothes, I argue that they would have had to repair the garments themselves or wear worn/torn clothes!
I sorted through the bag and found three pairs of warm socks with holes in the heels, a blouse with a tiny worn spot on the side seam, a sweater with a hole on the hem, and a skirt with a fallen hem. I decided to save money and mend these myself. After all, my sewing room is stocked with mending tools; needles, threads, zipper replacement parts and all manner of darning tools. I also found that my newest sewing machine also has a "mending" stitch (it's one of the stretch stitches that works perfectly to mend knits)! Within minutes I was stitching and fixing my own sweater and socks. It really was easy with the right tools.
I repaired the socks and sweater with the mending stitch on the sewing machine. I repaired the blouse with a straight stitch on the worn seam. I hand sewed the fallen hem of my skirt (a blind hem) and I believe I saved myself about $50 in the process. Everything looks as good as new. It didn't seem like work at all while I was mending and darning. I was helpful to myself and it felt really good!
You can teach yourself to mend or ask me about sewing lessons :)
http://diyfashion.about.com/od/mendingandalterations/ss/MendSeam.htm
