In my travels around the internet I’ve come across a couple of great mending resources that I just have to share!
Clothing Repairs (1965) and Mending Men’s Suits (1946) are “Home and Garden Bulletins” from the US Department of Agriculture. I decided to use up some printer ink and make my own hard copies (I’ve linked the titles to the online PDF that you can download to your computer). I’ll be putting them into a binder that I can keep with my sewing stuff as a reference!
Why am I so excited to find these? Well back in 1946 & 1965, it was worth many folks time & money to repair a piece of clothing rather then just toss it out and buy a new one. So these bulletins include directions for making many repairs that people today wouldn’t consider trying–like fixing the elastic in your slip or replacing the elastic webbing on a bra:
It’s really hard to find this kind of information out there today! There are directions on how to reinforce clothing when you first buy it so that it lasts longer, taking things in, letting them out, repairs for a wide variety of tears, pulls etc. There is even a section for the men on how to take better care of their suits when they are wearing them so that they don’t wear out as fast!
There are plenty of black and white photographs as well as diagrams and drawings–but some of the directions are a bit skimpy because they assume that anyone reading the bulletin would have a basic working knowledge of sewing.
While it won’t be practical to attempt all of these repairs, I’m interested in knowing how to do many of them–just because! I hate throwing out something that has life in it–I’d rather fix it and use it!
What a neat find! Okay, now I’m going to create a mending board and copy all your pins on it.
I’m the same as you on “fix it instead of throwing it away”, but with the added bit of not being able to afford shopping that often. Making clothing LAST is so important these days!
I really like these. Even though I don’t sew, it’s nice to see that there are repairs to rehab older clothes.