Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM Staff.
The “Mending by Hand: Visible Stitching” class in Boston teaches people an alternative to relegating worn-out clothes to landfills. Here attendees use colorful thread to repair their garments.

Did you ever learn to darn? I know I don’t need to ask Deb or some other readers, but sometimes I am surprised to recall that it was one of the few domestic skills my mother taught me. Nowadays, Zero Waste Scotland and others are helping people concerned about sustainable living learn mending. The classes actually look like fun.

Sara Lang reports at the Christian Science Monitor, “A giant brown table in the center of a room that smells faintly of paint and worn pine is strewn with colorful yarn. Students ranging from recent college graduates to retired professionals are perched on stools around it, needles poised, eyes fastened on their instructor dressed in bright red. 

“ ‘Can you do that again?’ one asks. 

“Jessamy Kilcollins teaches darning at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. She holds up a snip of denim and a needle threaded with yarn to demonstrate her stitch. Mending [is] back in vogue. The students on this recent evening have brought items they want to not only breathe new life into but also keep out of landfills – sweaters with holes in the elbows, a thrifted pillow, a favorite pair of leggings worn from too many hours on the pickleball court. 

“ ‘Where have you been all my life?’ asks overall-clad Jen Zehler, laughing as she threads her needle, ready to fortify a hole in her leggings. 

“The evening classroom provides a glimpse into a ‘slow fashion’ trend that is catching on across the United States. Fixing your favorite clothes isn’t just practical and sustainable, its adherents say. It’s also enjoyable and an antidote to tech-laden and sped-up lives. And in Massachusetts, it’s become a necessity. In the fall of 2021, the Bay State released its final 2030 Solid Waste Master Plan with a goal of reducing waste statewide by 30%.

On Nov. 1, 2022, Massachusetts issued a ban on throwing textiles in the trash, in what officials have said is the first time a state has implemented such a measure.

“Toni Columbo, a professional weaver in Boston, has witnessed an influx of customers wanting their clothes mended in the past few years especially as environmental awareness grows. Ms. Columbo, who has been mending for over four decades, started Invisible Reweaving in 1981 with her mother and sisters.

“ ‘Fast fashion is made out of plastics. It’s easy and cheap to manufacture. But when it comes time to dispose of those materials, it’s difficult. It doesn’t degenerate into the soil. It’s like a trash bag,’ says Ms. Columbo, who mainly works on repairing natural fibers such as wool. She had not heard of the Massachusetts ban until the Monitor asked her about it. ‘Natural fibers are better for the environment, but they are more expensive,’ she adds. …

“In the U.S., only 15% of textiles are recycled. A number of states and cities have launched initiatives to change that figure. In New York, Re-Clothe NY and Green Tree Textiles work to inform consumers about the locations of textile recycle bins and what can be recycled there. California recently enacted a law piloting a new system for industrial textile recycling, which includes educating the community about the impacts of fast fashion and establishing accessible recycling sites. Companies like Patagonia and Madewell encourage customers to send in their worn clothes to receive store credit or cash when they are resold. 

“ ‘The speed of the fashion cycle is very closely aligned to the really key question in fashion and sustainability, which is around volume,’ says Kate Fletcher, a professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen who coined the term ‘slow fashion’ in 2007. ‘At the moment we’re engaging in a cycle of gross overconsumption and gross overproduction.’ …

“Every year, around 100 billion pieces of clothing are produced, and an estimated 92 million tons end up in landfills (11.3 million tons in the U.S. alone as of 2018). The World Economic Forum in 2021 identified fashion as the world’s third-largest polluter, with global research suggesting the industry’s annual greenhouse gas emissions range from 2% to 10% and are growing.

“At first, ‘thrifting,’ shopping for secondhand clothes, became a trendy answer to fast fashion, especially among environmentally aware Generation Z and millennial shoppers who had an eye for unique and well-made clothing of previous decades. But as the popularity of thrifting has grown, so have its prices. Enter mending. …

“ ‘Studies have shown that people get the same sense of satisfaction or engagement from shopping for new things, as you do when you’re maintaining and repairing the things you already have,’ says Dr. Fletcher.

“In Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Angie Hoffman, a project manager for Ford Motor Company, says it was her experience working in retail – observing the constant consumer desire for more new clothes – that turned her away from shopping toward the creative pursuits of knitting, sewing, and mending. 

“When her sister first taught her to knit, Ms. Hoffman thought it was ridiculous to buy yarn to make socks when you could easily purchase a dozen tube socks for $6. But now she finds a lot of satisfaction in knitting while watching TV, or mending a hole in a sock or sewing patches on her favorite sweaters on an evening in. 

“ ‘I’ve made 23 pairs of socks by hand. It truly is the joy of making something beautiful and having that come from your two hands,’ says Ms. Hoffman. ‘That joy of conquering something new is really satisfying to me.’ ” 

More at Zero Waste Scotland, here. At the Monitor, here, you can get the rest of the story, including how a sustainable fashion class opened a whole new world for teacher Kilcollins. No firewalls.