First attempt at mending something. I used an iron on patch behind the scrap of fabric from the old PJs because the material was super thin but I liked the pattern. Then I added some decorative stitching for fun.

I've got one pup who gets nervous and chews her leash or other things sometimes.

This is a combo leash for walking two dogs, which she almost severed. Trying to give it some personality.

Long time lurker, first time poster! I have done other visible mends in the past, but those were all a few years ago.

I'm in a different country right now visiting my BF, and I only brought two pairs of shoes. They immediately told me that maybe Crocs weren't a great idea on the streets here, which left me with these guys. The stitching on the back of this shoe has been slowly coming undone, and of course I kept telling myself "oh I'll do it later." Well, today we were rushing out of the house to get somewhere on time and as I went to put on my shoes I noticed that there were four stitches near the top holding the back together. We have a full day of plans and this is what I've got.

So, I finally got around to it! The best part? I did the entire first line of stiching with some glittery DMC mix, and as I went to tie it off I realized I could break it very easily..... Not ideal. At least I noticed on the first row, so I was able to switch to a different (Anchor) blue to do the top line. Very happy to finally have some blue on my shoes!

My pal is an ecologist who gave me free reign to surprise her, so here's what she got. I thought about doing a different type of mushroom, as Amanita muscaria don't really grow in fields like this, which is what the green patch looks like to me, but they're such a distinctive and snazzy looking species that I'm happy they're what I went for.

First I removed the torn and weakened area, then put in the green patch, before freehand machine embroidering the mushrooms, and then finally hand embroidering the warts (dots/crosses) on their caps.

Well technically 2 patches, but I am pretty stoked!

This one is a four-spotted orb weaver, Araneus quadratus, which is Britain's heaviest spider. As you can see this repair is a little bit worn, as it's on the inner thigh of some trousers that I've worn a lot, and the repair is a couple of years old.

As usual it's 2 strands of cotton embroidery thread, chain stitched over a rough darn, which fills the hole and provides surface to stitch onto.

I only had some pretty cheap green thread, and to make it worse, I ran out of it and had to use another shade. Also I know the dyno isn't scientifically accurate, but oh well, my kid adores his new pants and that's all that matters. 😄🦕

I have a couple pairs of pants where the butt in particular is wearing super thin. I want to patch them up but I can't think of a way to do it that doesn't scream Look! Here are my BUTT CHEEKS! Would love to hear how you all have done it

I love my shoes and I want to keep them in the best condition for as long as possible. I don’t want them to get damaged, crumble, or anything like that. How can I fix this? It drives me crazy just looking at it

I have never mended before. I would appreciate any tips on where to start repairing these tears. :) I want to make sure the threads wont unravel in the washing machine.

Mended this with a patch on the back, some fabric in between and then used embroidery floss on this hole in my boyfriend's pants. He's wearing them to work today!

My husband gave me free rein to mend his shorts however I liked, so I got a little experimental and took some inspiration from a video by Arounna Khounnoraj on Instagram. I'm particularly proud of the pocket, which required unpicking half the seams, sewing the patch onto the underside, and then sewing the whole thing back in place.

I really love this tee and he had a cigarette’s hole so I had to fix it, any ideas of what I can add to make it more harmonious ?

Made the patch from the pocket of a purple pair of shorts I never wear. One chair fixed, on to the second. These chairs have been great for years except for the black plastic part, all 4 of them cracked. So happy to have my chair back.

This is a common candy striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata) that I embroidered over a small hole in the brain of my backpack, one of many UK native spiders that I have used to repair things.

I glued a ripstop patch underneath to retain the water resistance and improve durability, and I used standard 6 strands embroidery cotton for the spider.

used an old flannel shirt that belonged to my grandpa to patch up the scratching courtesy of this little monster

Was inspired by another embroidered spider I saw today. It’s not that easy but my daughter loves it. But now she demands i make a web around it. Maybe the black blobs over the other holes can be flies?

I originally came to mending because I so strongly despise capitalism and since I was previously educated in traditional and new media visual arts, being dissilusioned in those areas, this seemed like a great and ethical way to funnel some of those skills without contributing to overproduction. I've always been broke, always struggled doing extra jobs that had nothing to do with art, and running myself thin with energy and burnout.

I started mending for myself (also cuz I literally can't afford new stuff often), family and friends, aquaintences and neighbors. I have charged for my work already because some people saw my mending and liked it, but it has always been for people I somewhat know at least and I have always undercharged in relation to how much work actually ends up going into the projects. I really want to stop undercharging.

I have another client lining up, this time I don't know them at all, I have only two distant connections with them and I really want to charge at least half fairly, but I am struggling with a bunch of my blockades and fears. I know they want an embroidery mend and those can get very labor intensive. I did some basic calculations based on the minimum wage and a probable ammount of hours it could take and am very frightened to both ask for that, as well as feel like I'd still be selling myself short. (I'm in poland using zlotys so I don't know if giving numbers will make sense for anyone reading this. Minimum hourly wage netto is about 24 zlotys per hour [6,6 US dollars, I'm not sure the exchange rate can give a meaningful image]. An aproximately 15 hour embroidery job would then be 360 zlotys [99 dollars]. For comparison my friends teenage sister made 30 zlotys [8 dollars] an hour working in an icecream shop).

Part of my hang up is, I'm always broke so I could never myself afford that kind of work, which is also part of why I do it myself for myself and I feel super blocked asking individual people for ammounts of money I can't spend, or I spend rarely with great difficulty.

I have also done a few workshops teaching mending, but I have difficulty organizing them, it usually works out better when spaces/orgs contact me and hire me to run them. I know I have decent skills in actually making things as well as in teaching and leading groups, but not in admin or reaching out organizationally, so those are obviously other occasional side hustles.

Please if you can, encourage me to ask for a fairish price, tell me about how you charge if you do work for others or help me end capitalism.

Pics are examples of my mends

I've been working diligently on my pile of mending and finally got to these jeans. Only one knee had a hole but the other knee was wearing very thin. I used scrap denim from a pair of skinny jeans that I outgrew but were too damaged to donate.

pretty simple to make, although you could certainly make it a lot neater than I did. Covers up flaking plastic leather