160 U ST NW
Join us for this FREE mending class series, sponsored by the District Department of Energy and Environment.
Hosted by Common Good City Farm and St. George’s Episcopal Church.
Do you have a favorite pair of jeans that are just a *little* too worn out to wear anymore? How about holes in your socks? Stains on a favorite shirt? Or, maybe you just want to save money, reduce your environmental impact, and reject throw-away culture. Then this workshop series is for you!
This class will be taught by Ursula Sandstrom of Bowerbird Stitchery. Each week will cover a different type of mending, and include a free beginning mending kit for each participant. This ticket is for the first class in the series. To access the other classes, please click on their links below.
Week 1: Darning – reweaving socks and other holes
Week 2: Mending your rips and tears
Week 3: Visible Mending – covering your stains and making it beautiful
Participants from Kelly Miller public housing, other public housing residences, and who are low-income receive first priority for this class series.
Summary
We ask a lot of our clothes and many issues or damage can be fixed with a little bit of time and a few supplies. Darning is a great way to honor the resources and time that went into making the item, use less resources, keep beloved items useful, and use our money and time for other choices and needs.
Ursula is bringing her personal mending studio, a whole lot of examples (socks, sweaters and more!), and we will learn-by-doing to keep our clothes and gear lasting longer this open working session!
Issues that can be fixed: Holes in socks, sweaters or other knitted materials, places where weaving new material to cover the hole is an appropriate solution to the damage. Wool socks are a classic item to darn.
Issues that cannot be fixed: Completely shattered or destroyed material, anything that is dirty, anything that needs to be fixed with other sewing techniques (some basic mending tutorials here).
We are going to start right on time so that everyone can learn at the same time. Please bring a sweater/sock/other item that needs darning. and something to stabilize the item as your work such as a darning mushroom or tennis ball (see this basic tutorial for design intent and other ideas).
There is limited time – Ursula can advise on larger or more complicated projects, and has some resources for other options but we do not expect that 2 hours is enough time to learn and fix everything!Additional Details:
Know how to do some darning? Please keep in mind that what works for you may not work for everyone, there are a lot of different techniques. Please come in the spirit of solidarity and communal problem solving.
Want to start before the workshop? A basic darning technique here and DC Public Library books on mending, including darning, here (my favourite is Mend It Better).