Make and mend...
Finding joy in caring for hand made items
In last week’s post I talked about gift knitting, and it clearly touched a chord with lots of you - thanks to everyone who shared a story about your own experiences with gift knitting and crochet.
As the seasons change and we see the arrival of the autumn equinox, I took to the spare room to find our honeycomb blanket which had been put away for the summer. This was a blanket I made a few years ago using a kit I picked up at my local yarn shop, Ammonite Yarns. The pattern is by Stylecraft and originally called for DK weight yarn, but I upgraded mine to Aran weight and whilst its not quite double bed size, it is a big old chunk to get cosy under as the nights draw in.
Well… here in lies the inspiration for this blog post…
It somehow got a hole during the summer…
This then got me thinking about how we care for our finished items. In today’s world of fast fashion, a handmade item can truly be a gift that lasts a lifetime.
So I dug back through my stash and found some of the yarn I had leftover and I set about fixing it. The honeycombs start with a magic circle and on this one it just looks like the start came undone, so thankfully it was a quick fix!
Et voila!
So much love and dedication go into making handmade items, and especially heirloom blankets, they are often hours of labour. Memories were made with these blankets and sometimes when the maker is no longer with us what do we do?
A crocheter I really admire is Bex, who is the one woman powerhouse behind The Pigeon's Nest - this is Bex own description of herself on her website and it’s as badass as she is! Bex - also known as Pigeon - has an ongoing campaign of No Crochet Left Behind - what a great idea, right?!
Bex has been known to liberate crochet items that she finds at charity shops, as well as items that folks send her they no longer want/can finish. Bex then takes over and fixes or finishes the blanket and either re-sells them on or hands them back to the owner when she fixes them.
In this video from The Pigeon Nest’s instagram you can see Bex in action fixing an heirloom blanket that she was asked to fix for a customer.
You can read more about the No Crochet Left Behind initiative here on Pigeon’s website.
How are your mending skills? Have you got a pile of clothes or handmade items that need a bit of love and attention? My autumn and winter to-do list now includes learning mending techniques as I’ve got a shirt and some trousers that need attention, as well as a pair of knitted socks of Mark’s that have a hole!
What are your go-to mending tips? Let me know below.
Until next time, happy crafting.
OOOh love that blanket!! well done on the repair. We stay once a year at a beautiful country town...Stanthorpe about 4 hours west of us in Qld in a lovely cottage. The lady who owns it had some lovely family heirlooms crocheted blankets which this year when we went all had damage to them. So I replaced them with crocheted blankets I had made and I took hers home and repaired them all for her... I managed to match the yarn ( colours from 1950's & 60's!!) and I met up with her for coffee and gave them back to her. I had washed them carefully and you could barely see the repair... she was sooo grateful for new blankets for the cottage and she could keep her heirlooms at home now safe!
This is something I need to learn and work on at some point as I definitely have blankets I made for the children or us that develop holes, probably due to still not being 100% confident with what I’m doing with my ends, and so they’ve come loose and unraveled. I would also love to learn how to actually mend clothes for more than just missing buttons, so things can live on a bit longer