Hi, Anne here.
We thought you might like to see some of the garments that we rescue, as inspiration.
We'd love for creative mending to be what people think of instead of throwing clothing away as ruined.
This first garment is by Kate Madison. It had suffered some kind of bleach mark, but I took inspiration from a designer that I follow on Instagram - kristalarsondesigns, and used a matching rescued t-shirt to make the design on the front.
This garment will be headed for the shop soon.
Next is a mend by Jenny on a men's heavy wool shirt. These are well worth mending and in good demand second hand. Jenny has cleverly incorporated some felted wool to fix this tear in the sleeve. Some great visible (but subtle) mending there.
A pair of jeans, no longer wearable, teamed with a lovely piece of vintage fabric to become a child's overalls/jumper. A vintage fabric pocket is one of Jenny's signatures.
Mending items of clothing enhances their value, especially if they are your own or a loved family member's. I don't mean in a monetary way necessarily, but the mending that we do at Intercept takes them from having no value, as they were destined for landfill, to being an item of clothing that lives another life and gives money to the Salvation Army for their projects that are so needed here in Northland.
If you are a mender or love to do hand work, try listening along to podcasts as you work.
My favourites are Circular podcasts by Katie Tregidden. They are all about mending and upcycling and fabric artists and designers - just wonderful. If you haven't listened to podcasts before, just click on the link then go choose an episode - it's that easy. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9kOF9hSFlsZA==
Spring weather has arrived here in Northland NZ and the Intercept shop in Whangarei has now got it's Spring stock rolling in. We made good use of our recent lockdown time to sew up a storm.
Thanks for visiting the Intercept blog.