Sustainable Sewing Part 3: Creative Mending by Martha West

Like many of you, I have some wardrobe favorites that develop issues which might make them wastebasket worthy. I’ve found that creatively patching/mending these items prolongs their lives and even upgrades their appearance.

This is an Old Navy sweatshirt that is probably 25 years old. It’s really falling apart but I just can’t part with it. I found a gray-ish blue jersey fabric in my leftovers bin that coordinated very well with the color of the sweatshirt. I cut strips of the jersey a little larger than the frayed or holey areas and simply layered the blue jersey over the ragged parts of my sweatshirt. Then I hand sewed the patches to the sweatshirt beneath in the Japanese Boro style. I like the sweatshirt even better and have given her a name. Meet “Mendy”!

Please let us know if you want to learn either or both of these techniques! For reference, the Columbus Library has a large selection of Alabama Chanin books and the shirt and sweatshirt are both from the book called “Stretch!” by Tilly Walnes. The stencils I used are from a stencil book by Amy Butler which may be out of print now.

Sustainable Sewing: Old Jeans Transformation from Martha West

I found a truly ancient pair of American Eagle jeans at the bottom of a drawer and decided to convert them into a shopping tote bag.
First, I deconstructed the jeans, removed the waistband, pockets, and cut the front and back apart. My preference was to reuse the various components of the jeans but in an all new configuration. This took a fair bit of time! The pieces are sewn together with double topstitching 17.5” x 14.5”.

I cut squares out of the bottom of the rectangles 2.5” x 2.5” so my tote would have a flat bottom about 5” wide. Then I sewed half of each waistband (about 13” each) to use for straps. Each was sewn 3” from the top center of the outer bag, a total of 6” apart. These pieces were interfaced with a muslin interfacing similar to Pellon SF101.

For the lining, I cut two pieces of quilting cotton the same size as the outer fabrics. I interfaced these pieces just like the outer fabrics. Next, I sewed a few pockets in the lining that I’d harvested from some old jeans I’d used for a project some time ago.

the lining

And here’s the result!