A Stitch in Time: “Textiles tell a story”

“When you mend something, you either fix what’s wrong with it or you look at how to embellish, change or add to it that will support the fix,” Landis explained. “Another thing is repairing something special with something else special, to tie memories together.”

My sweatshirt was fraying at the neckline and had sleeve edges that needed doctoring. Landis suggested sewing pretty vintage ribbon over those parts to cover the damage and create visual interest. She picked thread that matched the ribbon, taught me a basic stitch, and set me to work under a bright task lamp.

As I stitched, my thoughts drifted back to the morning I pulled on the sweatshirt to go to the hospital, full of hope and trepidation. I wore the sweatshirt often during the early, hazy days of motherhood, and then I kept wearing it simply because it was comfortable. When, after many years, holes appeared in the cuffs and collar, I put it away in a drawer. Now my daughter is 20 and we’re both entering a new phase of life. I want this sweatshirt to come with me and perhaps last another 20 years.

“Textiles tell a story, just like photographs but with a kinetic memory,” Landis said.

We move around in our clothes and they move with us, carrying part of our story in their fibers. In a bygone era, Landis said, that story would have been told over many iterations. One piece of fabric would begin as a dress or a shirt, then be cut down to make children’s clothing, then cut into squares for a quilt. When the quilt wore out, it would be cut up again for housecleaning rags. The fabric held a record of family memories as vivid as any photo album.

Hand-repaired items develop a life of their own, said Landis, because they become doubly cherished, things to be handed down rather than thrown away. That’s the heart of the modern make-do-and-mend movement: The idea that our resources are valuable and so we should treat them with respect.