Making Mends brings people together to mend, (re)make and swap our way through Bristol’s collective wardrobe, keeping clothing out of landfill, one item at a time.
We host Fix Club (regular meet ups dedicated to communal clothes repair), sustainable sewing workshops and slow fashion events in Bristol.
Our hands-on Fix Club sessions are for everyone: from sewing cynics and beginners to absolute pros, and everyone in between.
Through our clothes swaps we hope to bring the community together while reducing textile waste. Local clothes swaps also remove the delivery-driver’s carbon footprint that comes with online clothes-buying, whether first or secondhand.
Making mends is run by me, Sarah.
A few years ago I decided I was going to become a mend-maker supreme, repairing my clothes and household textiles in creative ways like all the inspiring visible (and invisible) mend-makers I’d seen on Instagram. I wanted to reduce the amount of textile waste I created while using my hands to extend the life of my clothes in a beautiful way. (Practical AND creative: match made in heavs.)
I made a start, and got into it briefly, fixing things here and there when I had a moment. Alas, my then-baby, soon followed by my second then-baby, understandably had different ideas about how I should spend my time. Life became too busy, a couple of years passed, and here we are.
And so Making Mends, and more specifically Fix Club, was born out of the need to find a dedicated time and space for working through my repair pile while learning and improving on skills. Add to the mix a group of lovely, interesting locals of various ages and backgrounds who might not otherwise meet, and you’ve got yourself a useful, enjoyable and inspiring way to spend an evening.
There are, of course, other benefits; meeting people face-to-face in our increasingly digital world is a balm for the soul, as is spending a few hours screen-free, using your hands, focusing on creating and pondering the magic that is making and maintaining our carefully crafted clothes.
I hope that Making Mends will support a growing community to explore and develop creative, collective ways to reduce and prevent textile waste. And I would love you to join us.
I believe:
we need to buy a lot less (new) stuff, and take better care of what we already have.
there should be absolutely no suffering involved in the creation of our clothes.
getting dressed should be a joy. We should be able to wear things that fit us comfortably and make us feel great.
in the magic of sewing to transform meh things into yeahh things.
making, whether together or alone, is a soothing workout for the soul and an essential antidote to society’s unhealthy obsession with consumption.
How about you? If you feel similarly and want to get involved with Making Mends, get in touch!
Our manifesto
Five big fat C words guide everything we do:
Circularity. Comfort. Community. Confidence. Creativity.
What does this mean in practice?
Illustrations and photography
Big thanks to Janneke at Slice of Nice for her wonderful illustrations (who doesn’t want that planet jumper?), and to Bristol-based photographer Zoe Dixon for beautifully capturing Fix Club in the images found on this site.
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