Mobile Mending Project

The Mobile Mending Team, formed on January 12th, 2010 as a response to an Artistic Collaboration project assignment in a Surface Design class at North Vancouver’s Capilano University (Textile Arts Programme). The team’s common goal: raising awareness about mending, textiles and the d.i.y. Movement and generating enthusiasm around reusing (as opposed to disposing) by assisting the public with their mending needs (from rips, tears and holes to lost buttons and fallen hems), and teaching them how to d.i.t. (do it themselves!).

Empowering passers by with mending tips and other household hints, the menders mend for free,* and encourage the public to save their safety pins, staples and Speed Sew and equip themselves with the all mighty thread and needle. Simple mending kit recipe lists and instructions are made available.

The Mobile Menders will begin at their University Campus, creating a buzz amongst students, and hold a mending event for the general public at their city’s public art gallery (Vancouver’s VAG) on Saturday, January 30th, 2010. Dressed in team-made aprons (made from donated camo-print cloth) and armed with portable sewing machines, thread, pins, buttons, sewing needles, yarn, darning needles, scissors and sturdy patch cloth, the Menders will be ready to fix up any garment in need of repair.

The cohesive team of 4 is currently working on their logo design. They’ll be developing an image of a simple pair of hands affixing a button with needle and thread and using it in all of their print and textile media (posters, banners, aprons). The expressive simplicity of a pair of hands mending was agreed upon for its universality and power to communicate and connect.

The Mobile Mending project is a project about Mending the clothes that we wear, making things better and creating connection and community in a cross-cultural way. Having heard about a “Roving Mender” project held in Toronto in days gone by, the team wondered if Vancouver had experienced such a project. Furthermore, it would be most rewarding to bring the project to other communities in the area.

This project requires no equipment beyond the supplies the group has currently collected from friends and classmates, and due to the mobile nature of the project, a venue is open to interpretation (perhaps a simple home-base table and room to move around and mingle and mend). We welcome anyone who would like to participate and can teach those who aren’t yet mending experts. The more menders, the merrier.



*Free Mending includes the following: sewing on buttons and providing close-matching missing buttons (if need be), hemming pants and skirts, sewing up rips, tears and holes (on or off seam), minor patching and sock darning.