‘I loved defying the tyranny of fast fashion, one stitch at a time’: Make do and mend is enjoying a creative revival

My own personal darning revival happened during the early days of covid. In the first lockdown, I’d cleaned everything that didn’t move and I don’t like banana bread, so I was looking for something else to do. During one of these cleaning sessions, I found a box of cashmere jumpers that had become victims of the moth. I’d put them away thinking that one day I’d mend them, but, in my heart, I knew this was a delaying tactic for their inevitable resting place: the bin.

Perhaps, now, they could be saved? I had some rudimentary darning skills taught to me by my grandmother. She and her four sisters, born during the First World War and becoming young wives and mothers during the Second, knew thrift like a family friend. They all had good hands. They could sew, crochet and knit — and, of course, they could darn. I always marvelled at how they made a hole in a sweater or sock vanish or, if it were too large for invisible mending, cover it with tiny, neat stitches.

I ordered darning wool online. Years ago, I’d interviewed a woman about keeping chickens and asked if she had advice for first-timers. ‘Get some ex-battery hens, because, however many mistakes you make, you’re still going to give them a better life,’ she said. I kept this in mind as I looked at my jumpers and cards of wool. However poor my darning might be, I was taking something I couldn’t wear and potentially transforming it into something I could.

To get started, I went to the internet’s knowledgeable grandmother, YouTube, and watched dozens of hypnotically soothing videos of women working magic with thread. I remembered how, if my own grandmother didn’t have a wooden darning mushroom to hold the fabric taut as she stitched, she used a light bulb. I gathered my sewing basket and a light bulb and got started. My efforts were imperfect, but immensely satisfying. I loved defying the tyranny of fast fashion, one stitch at a time.