Mending is sewing too

I don't feel that I can justify making Mitchell new outfits, when I have clothes for him waiting in the mending pile. He grows so quickly, that if I don't fix them now, I might as well throw them out. I'm pretty picky over what I mend, it has to be 'worth my time' so I sort out: good quality fabrics/designs; things he looks extra cute in; things he's been given by special people in our lives; oh, and also anything that only needs a tiny stitch to make it good as new.
So that's why an extra cute and comfortable pair of denim trousers given to him by his aunt, had new knee patches added (where he wore out the knees crawling); while other pairs of trousers have gone straight in the rag bag.

I looked at the mending pile today, and regretfully put the sewing aside (even though there's only the waistband to do....) and spent the 45 minutes [and that's a whole nother story] of his nap time today, mending.

I started with a lovely green outfit that my sister gave him with appliqued monkey motifs. So far as Mitchell is concerned, "iron on" means "pull off", and those monkeys had just about given up any attachment to their parent garment. But it is cute, and he's certainly getting the wear out of it in this hot weather. If I'm going to spend my time mending something, it's darned well going to stay mended. So out came the invisible thread, and I whip-stitched the monkeys firmly in place, right round the edge of the applique.

Then the buttons. It seems that whatever automatic button-stitcher-on-er they have in garment factories, hasn't been put to the toddler-test. Just about every button Mitchell owns gets removed or comes loose within the first couple of wears. I've learned to re-sew all the buttons on a garment, when the first one comes loose. I suppose that I really should stitch them in place before he wears them for the first time -- but, I feel daunted at the thought....

And finally darning. Now this one really is crunch time for a garment -- it has to be really worth it for me to darn. Though there are plenty of candidates.... Only one set of trousers made the cut this time.... lovely microfibre board shorts in shades of blue. He'd got at my dressmaking scissors and made little snips through the fabric (before I spotted him and wrested them away). Three tiny darns, and they're wearable again

There's something sort of satisfying about folding up mended clothes to put away in his drawers, and seeing his mending basket empty (mine on the other hand, threatens to topple over it's so full).

But it's not nearly so much fun as sewing....