Mending Life: A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts

by Nina Montenegro

Learn the art of visible mending—a joyful, meditative, and restorative practice—to repair the clothes and belongings you love!

Mending Life, a beautiful modern sewing and mending guide with vibrant, full-color illustrations woven throughout, encourages us to break free from the fast fashion industry by repairing our clothes rather than discarding them. Along with DIY and how-to illustrations and tutorials, you’ll find heartfelt stories by authors Nina and Sonya Montenegro (creators of the popular @TheFarWoods) that encourage you to change your consumption habits, celebrate a sustainable, intentional lifestyle, demonstrate mending as a powerful act that not only strengthens the object we are repairing, but ourselves as well. 

Beginners and Seasoned Sewers will find:

Basic Mending Skills - how to thread a needle, how to tie knots, and basic stitches
Sashiko - a striking Japanese hand-sewing technique for reinforcement and decoration
Darning - plain weave, swiss weave, crocheted patch, knitted patch, and needle-felted patch
Patching - the best three ways to patch holes how-to guide
Mending Tutorials by Item - down jackets, shirt cuffs, and linen
Other Common Repairs - snags, buttons, belt loops, leggings, pant pockets, and more
Sewing Beyond Mending - hemming pants, taking garments in, and adding pockets

Extend the life of your favorite clothes and beloved household items with mending with this timeless and practical guide to cherishing and caring for our belongings.

• ISBN10: 1632172526
• ISBN13: 9781632172525
• Publish Date: 10 March 2020
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 2 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Sasquatch Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781632172525

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Mending Life is a gently illustrated tutorial guide to repairing and repurposing textiles (especially clothing) for the modern person, along with a dose of philosophy and musings on meaning. Due out 10th March 2020 from Sasquatch Books, it's 224 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

This is an accessible and well written guide to basic mending techniques but it's also a wonderfully illustrated and gently philosophical treatise on the malaise of a consumer driven lifestyle and disposable culture. The introduction and background lead into chapters on darning, patching, other repair techniques, and alterations for clothing. Throughout the book, the artist-authors have used their artwork to illustrate and illuminate. The style is naive and whimsical, gentle and with a soothing palette.

The book includes a short index and a comprehensive and eclectic bibliography and resource links list for further reading.

Five stars. I really enjoyed this one and recommend it highly for all age groups and abilities. Anyone could use this book as a starting point to acquire some valuable life skills.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.