A Beginner's Guide To Visible Mending (with Over 20 Easy Projects: Bring New Life To Old Clothes With Darning, Appliqué, Sashiko-style Stitching, And More)

BRING NEW LIFE to old clothes or charity-shop finds and create your SUSTAINABLE WARDROBE.

Learn techniques such as APPLIQUÉ, SWISS DARNING, EMBROIDERY and BINDING.

BRING NEW LIFE to old clothes or charity-shop finds and create your SUSTAINABLE WARDROBE.

Learn techniques such as DARNING, EMBROIDERY, NEEDLE-FELTING, APPLIQUÉ and BINDING.

Repairing your old clothes is a brilliant way of adding personality to your wardrobe, is good for the environment and saves money. Perfect for complete beginners, this handbook introduces a variety of mending techniques and shows you how to make unique projects with your new skills. 

First, there is a guide to all the tools you’ll need, from hand-sewing needles to darning discs and mushrooms. Then, explore different methods of mending, with detailed step-by-step guides, followed by easy projects to put your skills into practice. Learn how to create vibrant patterns with darning, strengthen and embellish with sashiko-style stitching, cover stains with needle-felting and handmade patches, and much more. Throughout, you''ll find advice on choosing colours, threads and materials, and how to incorporate a visible mend into the existing style of a garment or use it to give the item a complete refresh.

The 20 beautiful projects include adding needle-felted embellishments to a scarf, repairing a denim jacket with sashiko, patching a hole in fine silk fabric and adding colourful darning to a jumper.

After training as a couture milliner, Shelley Zetuni set up her own hat-making studio in North London, where she included royalty among her client list. During the pandemic, she found comfort in crafting and drew on her lifetime of textile know-how to launch Sewingsmith. She runs beginners’ visible mending classes and retreats. Find out more on Instagram: @_sewingsmith_ and at sewingsmith.co.uk.