How to host a mending circle

+ Everyone I know of that's already running one!

Some housekeeping :

• I’ll be at helping out at Fabscrap’s mending night at Seven Wonders Collective on May 13th if you want to come mend with me!

• If you are looking for a place to consistently gather with others to mend, I have a growing list of mending clubs all around the world on a google doc. (I’m thinking about making it into a cute website with filters at some point.) Know of one not on the list? Send it to me! Don’t see one in your city? Keep reading for all my thoughts and practical tips for starting your own.

• I’m opening the “subscriber chat” on substack for this newsletter, with the hopes that it will be a place for you all to go to ask mending questions and get advice from me and others, to share before and after pics of your mends and crafts you are working on, and to build community with each other. If you are a subscriber (it’s all free here for the foreseeable future) You can access the chat from the app or if you are signed in on desktop. The first thread is up now, so you can reply here to introduce yourself and start your own threads as well.

• This substack / broader project are free because I want to share all my mending knowledge in an accessible way so the most people can learn to mend. However you can give me a few bucks on buy me a coffee if you find these resources helpful and want to support this work.

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How to host a mending circle

Ok, let’s get into the meat of today’s letter, which is a guide to starting your own mending circle. I’m going to define a “mending circle” for our purposes as an informal gathering of people to mend their clothes together. There are many forms and settings that mending circles can take:; maybe you are a business owner wanting to incorporate a mending circle into your offerings, a teacher or pastor wanting to offer a community building space for members of your school/church/mutual aid group, or just a person wanting to get some friends together in your living room. Whatever your aims, this advice is for you, whether or not you’re an experienced mender. We’ll go through my tips on vibes, what to bring, and scheduling.

Knowledge Sharing

In my opinion, the goal of a mending circle is for attendees to have a space for community and accountability while working on their own mending projects and to share knowledge and skills with each other. But when starting a new one, I would advise having at least one person there who comes to not necessarily work on their own projects, but to specifically help teach and advise people who have never mended or sewn before. Having this dedicated person helps the space be welcoming and inviting to beginners, and sets the vibe as a space for knowledge sharing, including from other members!

Another thing I started doing when running mending circles is to bring a few books with mending tutorials in them. This is great because people can peruse through and get inspired, and follow tutorials even when I’m occupied helping someone else. The two I currently own and bring with me are Mending Life and Mending Matters, which have both been wonderful. I’m also currently eyeing Well Worn and Visible Creative Mending for Knitwear to grow my collection. Be sure to check your local library for what mending books they offer, and request some if they don’t offer any! (It looks like the Brooklyn library has 6 different mending books, and many are available!!)

If you have a desire to help people learn but don’t think you have enough knowledge yourself, I would like to point out you don’t need as much as you think: you will learn as you go alongside everyone else. For example, if I can't remember how to do a certain stitch that I think would work for someone's mend I will often help people google a tutorial for that stitch. You could even start a gathering where no one knows anything about mending but you follow along with some video tutorials on your TV or illustrations from a book and support each other as you go. I would even say the videos I’ve made for darning and patching by hand would be a good way to start building your own skills.

Materials

An “mending explainer” I made to help show people different stitches and ways of patching!

Here is a breakdown of everything I roll up to a mending circle with:

• Thread: I like to have some heavy duty hand sewing thread, something like this or this, and some more “normal” weight thread that you would use in your sewing machine. Usually just white and black is sufficient.

• Embroidery floss / Sashiko thread: I have some of this brand of sashiko thread that is great for patching, but embroidery floss is a lot more plentiful in my collection just from being given a bunch for free ages ago, and can serve the same purpose. Let this be a reminder to start with what you have!

• Yarn: I like to collect and save the leftover bits of yarn from my friends who knit and wrap them around little pieces of cardboard for people to use for darning. I also have some yarn samplers that I found at fabscrap that are soooo great because they have little bits of lots of different colors. (Embroidery floss and sashiko thread can also work for darning, and it’s nice to take embroidery floss apart into just a couple of the strands for thin knitwear darns.)

• Jar lids and rubber bands: these are my secret ingredient for teaching darning, and since they are basically free I can send folks home with them. See my tutorial for how I use them here.

• An assortment of needles: A multi-pack is good to start with, make sure you have some with big enough eyes for whatever yarn and embroidery floss you are bringing. I love these long darners from merchant and mills.

• Scissors: a few pairs are enough to pass around - I like to have some snips, some fabric scissors, and if you have some pinking shears are great for cutting patches too.

• Fabric scraps: My bin of fabric scraps comes from a mix of scraps from my own past projects (especially from cropping things), and from fabscrap. It’s always a bonus that when you volunteer at fabscrap you get 5 lbs of fabric for free! Fabric scraps are also something small businesses (tailor shops, small brands that do production in your city, upcyclers) or other sewists in your local buy nothing groups will be happy to give you for free when asked. If you want something more specific, I also found some scrap pack options for you here, here, here, and here.

Make it recurring

My next piece of advice to you is simple. If you’re going to host a mending circle, why make it a one time event when you could make it monthly? Here’s my argument for why:

1. This gives the opportunity to do some real community building and have a space where people can make friends by seeing the same people over time.

2. People can grow their skills over time and build upon what they learn.

3. If it’s at a regular day and time that people start to expect, (say the first Sunday of the month in the afternoon) then it’s less work to plan and market since you are just taking a thing and repeating it again!

This isn’t to say you can’t do a one off mending event, that could be a great place to start before you commit to something more regular. But I think the regularity really makes these so delightful.

photo by: https://www.instagram.com/sashabphoto/

Physical spaces to gather in

• If you are going to make a free mending club:

  • If you are just doing this as a person and not a business or non-profit - then a living room is the perfect space tbh - free, cozy, inviting.

  • You can often book library meeting rooms for free! Or partner with your local library to host a free community event.

• If you are going to charge money for your mending circle:

  • Finding physical space to host events in NYC is the hardest part, because everyone’s rent is so expensive. And I assume this is the case for other high cost of living cities as well. My advice here is that you gotta find spaces who are excited about what you are doing and on the same page about wanting to create an accessible community event. You could also think about spaces where, by hosting a mending club there, you would be bringing them additional business. This way there is a “marketing” opportunity that the space gets out of it instead of just the little bit of money you can afford to pay with your low-cost ticket sales. Here’s some spaces to think about looking into where you live

    • Makers Spaces!

    • Cafes/Bars with a back room you could use while they are open to the public

    • Cafes willing to stay open a little later for you to use the space and bring in customers who will buy drinks and snacks while they mend

    • Vintage Stores and retail stores focused on sustainability who have enough floor space to set up tables and chairs

    • Individual artists/sewists/etc who have studio spaces that you could partner with to use for cheap

Other tidbits and ideas

• Music helps people connect! Make a playlist or have attendees recommend an album they like

• Keep a written log of what people were mending and/or what mending skills folks were interested in learning. This is maybe a selfish ask, because I want to know!! I did some loose data collection that I talked about the results of here, and I’m so curious how this would compare to other people’s findings, and how we can use this knowledge to build better communities of repair. If you do do this, please report back to me!

I’m sure if prompted I'd have more to say, so feel free to leave any specific questions you have in the comments, and I will either get back to you directly or use them as a jumping-off point for future posts.