So I love mending stuff, and lately I've been inspired to add an extra bit of a creative touch to my mending. This week I mended my working in the garden pants.
I think I actually bought these pants on my last trip to Europe, in a Galway op shop (short for opportunity shop, also known as a charity shop or second hand shop for non-Aussies who don't know the neat term op shop). For a long time now I have bought pretty much all my clothes in op shops, or had hand me downs/ups or swaps from friends and relatives, and lately I've also been discovering the joy of "free shops" that can be found in many communities around the place. I like to buy/find/use second hand stuff when there is something that I need, as it reduces waste, and as a bonus it's often cheaper, or even free! And the fun of finding something you like is extra exciting when you can't just find everything in the shop in your size. :-) And while it is possible to get many things new very cheap, it's very important to think about how these too good to be true prices are possible and what costs are being hidden… If you do buy new, consider trying to buy from the maker, at a market or a shop stocking locally made items. Knowing the source of your clothing, the material and the labour can feel wonderful, and there's nothing like paying a good price for quality items hand made by someone in your neighbourhood that will last you well. I even have some items of clothing that I have had for more than 20 years now, still going strong. Quality counts.
Anyway… So I also then like to keep my clothes going as long as I can, again to reduce waste, so I like to mend stuff, like I said...
So this week I mended my working in the garden pants. I ripped one leg to shreds clearing some brambles back in Glastonbury in January and the holes just kept growing and growing since then as I've continued to wear them working in gardens round Europe... :-)
So I mended them with some denim that I got from my dear friend Daniel back in Järna in April. I really like that the patches come from a friend's old favourite pair of jeans. They had reached the end of their life as a useful pair of pants, not really mendable, so instead part of them has now helped to keep my pants going a little longer. I was inspired by the darker blue edge from the seam where the sun hadn't faded the denim, and the yellow overstitching, to integrate these features and also add just a little tiny extra bit of colour to the patch.
The denim should be nice and strong and keep my pants going for a good bit longer, though I have a little hole still to mend on the other knee, and a small tartan piece of material from a free shop at a Belgian community, that matches the patches another friend used to mend his pants. :-)
So I thought while I was on the topic, I'd add here another little piece of writing that I wrote and posted on facebook when I mended another item of clothing in April, when I was in Järna, where I got this denim! This post was inspired by a few things coming together. The lovely item of clothing was a cardigan I also found in the free shop at the Belgian community, which turned out to have once belonged to my lovely friend Helena, so it's like I get a cuddle from her every time I wear it. :-)
Aliveness, mendinspiration, kindness and synchronicity...
On Tuesday in Järna (Sweden) I went to an inspiring talk by Charles Eisenstein on the topic of "Is Earth really alive?" and I felt happy because Earth is alive and we are all part of Earth and the aliveness, and love is the answer, and because the talk clicked together many themes that have been with me on this journey I'm on. And I was there with such lovely kind people whose home and community I had become part of for some days, feeling so welcomed and included. (Who not so surprisingly turned out to know my friends from the not so far away Himmerslund.)
On Wednesday I felt inspired when mending a hole in a cardigan elbow (in Järna and later continuing in a lovely spot amongst trees and flowers in the nearby Mörkö) to embellish the spiral darn I made with a continued spiral pattern of embroidery. It made me feel happy, to mend, and to be creative with it, having been inspired by the company of so many creative people in recent times.
On Thursday after not quite as successful hitch hiking as I hoped (but making friends with other unsuccessful hitchhikers instead) I found myself in a hostel in Norrköping (instead of my planned destination near Jönköping), where I discovered a copy of Thoreau's Walden, a tome of simplicity, and opened randomly to a section about patched clothing (not my underlining). It made me feel happy to read about simplicity, about patches in clothing, and about the important things in life.
Now I am staying with kind friends of my kind Järna friend, in this pretty place near Jönköping, and I'm feeling happy (after very happy hitch hiking with yet another kind soul yesterday). And this evening I find out on this book of faces that other lovely friends are happily mending, or not, or thinking about mending, or not, and posting or commenting about and liking such, and small world that it is, we are all so closely connected and I even discovered two friends are friends, which happens in this cyber place time to time...
This is a time of sharing, of mending, of healing, of caring, of simplicity and kindness and connection. The time is now. We can mend all that needs mending, one stitch at a time, heal all that needs healing, connecting and weaving together the fabric of reality and making all on Earth whole again... I know it's possible if we all try... and that makes me feel happy.
Thanks to all, for kindness and sharing and caring, for mending and healing and connecting, for being, for being together, for being whole.
 |
| Newly mended pants, already dirty again from more working in the garden :-) |
Anyway… So I also then like to keep my clothes going as long as I can, again to reduce waste, so I like to mend stuff, like I said...
So this week I mended my working in the garden pants. I ripped one leg to shreds clearing some brambles back in Glastonbury in January and the holes just kept growing and growing since then as I've continued to wear them working in gardens round Europe... :-)
So I mended them with some denim that I got from my dear friend Daniel back in Järna in April. I really like that the patches come from a friend's old favourite pair of jeans. They had reached the end of their life as a useful pair of pants, not really mendable, so instead part of them has now helped to keep my pants going a little longer. I was inspired by the darker blue edge from the seam where the sun hadn't faded the denim, and the yellow overstitching, to integrate these features and also add just a little tiny extra bit of colour to the patch.
The denim should be nice and strong and keep my pants going for a good bit longer, though I have a little hole still to mend on the other knee, and a small tartan piece of material from a free shop at a Belgian community, that matches the patches another friend used to mend his pants. :-)
So I thought while I was on the topic, I'd add here another little piece of writing that I wrote and posted on facebook when I mended another item of clothing in April, when I was in Järna, where I got this denim! This post was inspired by a few things coming together. The lovely item of clothing was a cardigan I also found in the free shop at the Belgian community, which turned out to have once belonged to my lovely friend Helena, so it's like I get a cuddle from her every time I wear it. :-)
Aliveness, mendinspiration, kindness and synchronicity...
On Tuesday in Järna (Sweden) I went to an inspiring talk by Charles Eisenstein on the topic of "Is Earth really alive?" and I felt happy because Earth is alive and we are all part of Earth and the aliveness, and love is the answer, and because the talk clicked together many themes that have been with me on this journey I'm on. And I was there with such lovely kind people whose home and community I had become part of for some days, feeling so welcomed and included. (Who not so surprisingly turned out to know my friends from the not so far away Himmerslund.)
On Wednesday I felt inspired when mending a hole in a cardigan elbow (in Järna and later continuing in a lovely spot amongst trees and flowers in the nearby Mörkö) to embellish the spiral darn I made with a continued spiral pattern of embroidery. It made me feel happy, to mend, and to be creative with it, having been inspired by the company of so many creative people in recent times.
Now I am staying with kind friends of my kind Järna friend, in this pretty place near Jönköping, and I'm feeling happy (after very happy hitch hiking with yet another kind soul yesterday). And this evening I find out on this book of faces that other lovely friends are happily mending, or not, or thinking about mending, or not, and posting or commenting about and liking such, and small world that it is, we are all so closely connected and I even discovered two friends are friends, which happens in this cyber place time to time...
This is a time of sharing, of mending, of healing, of caring, of simplicity and kindness and connection. The time is now. We can mend all that needs mending, one stitch at a time, heal all that needs healing, connecting and weaving together the fabric of reality and making all on Earth whole again... I know it's possible if we all try... and that makes me feel happy.
Thanks to all, for kindness and sharing and caring, for mending and healing and connecting, for being, for being together, for being whole.
