Mending Lesson

Yesterday a coworker came my room with this wrap:

She had bought it the day before while in Asheville because she got cold and needed a jacket. She didn't realize it had this...

...a hole on the front near the pocket. She wanted to know if I could mend it. After telling her I might have some yarn that would match in my stash at home, I reconsidered my options.

Digging into my classroom wool stash, I found some black and white roving.

As I monitored my students drawing I blended it to create gray...

...adding bits until I was able to match the color of the wrap.

Using one of the classroom drop spindles I spun and plied a short length of lightweight yarn, which I threaded onto a darning needle. Duplicating the matching stitches as closely as possible, I closed the offending hole.

And here is the resulting mend. It worked out so well I had to put a pen on the wrap to locate it in my lens. This was a challenge, but I enjoyed it. And, it was good for my students to see that mending is a better option than tossing out things that have minor flaws. Little by little I am trying to teach by example...make, make do, reuse, recycle...hopefully they are learning something.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

What do you do when you get snowed in?

A lot of the people I know don't like to get snowed in.

Mainly I think because they don't know what to do with themselves.

They get bored.

Not me.

I can always find something to keep my hands and mind busy.

 Yesterday was a pretty productive day.

In addition to laundry and cleaning the kitchen and dining room floors I

hemmed 3 pairs of new jeans that have been waiting since summer

made 16 napkins from prewashed muslin in my fabric stash

(one day I will get around to making some of these,

but for now plain muslin beats paper)

mended my husband's favorite camo shirt

and worked on Jonathan's vest

 The shirt had several small holes in it.

I mended them with the darning stich on the machine.

This is the worst one, at the base of the chest pocket, barely visible now

 Unless you look closely.

 This is the inspiration for Jonathan's vest, in the latest issue of knitsimple magazine.

He chose the yarn colors from knitpicks.com and

asked for no buttons, so

I am modifying the pattern to pullover style.

The stripes will begin this evening or tomorrow.

 Today I am working on this, a rag rug,

while looking at blogs and doing more laundry.

 Last Monday at crafts night one of the ladies was making a toothbrush rug.

I watched and thought I could figure this out on my own.

I'm not sure if I am doing it the same way she did, but it is working.

A bit wonky, but a good first effort.

She was using a beautiful wooden needle,

which I think my wonderful s-i-l can make, but

since this plastic tapestry needle is what I had on hand it is what I used.

The technique is basically a buttonhole stitch.

I worked around a core of an additional strip of fabric

(donated by a friend a couple of years ago,

 indigo with white broken stripes and anchors,

I like the way the pattern gets broken up in the stitching process).

The rug looks similar to one I crocheted a few years ago.

But this technique is easier on my hands and shoulder.

This first one will be a small rug I think

because I don't have a lot of this fabric.

But then maybe I can find something that will work with it.

A good reason to hit the thrift stores.

So, what do you do when you get snowed in?