Whether at a library, community center, or school, it's easy to host a "Slow Fashion: Mend Don't Spend" workshop that will get teens excited about sewing and mending.
This workshop format works great as a one-time event, a short series with different topics, or a recurring get together. Bring more teens into your program by engaging in their love of fashion, creativity, and sustainability!
Mend Don't Spend Workshop at Santa Monica Public Library, Winter 2025
Slow Fashion: Mend Don’t Spend
Are you a fashion friendly, eco-conscious teen that wants to express yourself through the clothes you wear but don’t want to be part of the waste cycle created by the fast-fashion machine? Let us teach you how to care for and maintain the pieces you love and modify thrift store treasures into runway-ready masterpieces.
You’ll learn awesome sewing skills such as mending, patching, applique, and basic clothing modifications to tailor clothes to suit your body and your personality. Shine bright knowing that you’re using fashion to help you and Earth live your best lives.
90-Minute Session
Maximum Participants: 15
Participants bring their own garments to mend and modify or use thrift store clothes you provide.
General Workshop Format:
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Set up a room with one or two big shared tables all participants can sit around. Have various examples of mended and upcycled clothes out for early arrivals to examine and get inspiration. Have a separate table with tools and materials. Put on some nice music and provide snacks.
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When the group is assembled, briefly introduce the activity and ask how much experience the participants have.
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Group by levels of experience; it’s helpful for less experienced menders to get extra support and celebrate their successes together! Help those with less experience get confident threading a needle and stitching.
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More advanced menders can go directly to modifying or mending the garment of their choice.
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End ten minutes before the scheduled end time to have a chance to go around and show off what people made or say something they learned.
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Organize a group clean-up that includes collecting fabric scraps and thread to sort for anything that is reusable and sweeping for needles on the tables and floor—not a good surprise for anyone else! A magnetic sweeper can be a big help here.
Why Mend?
“At first glance, mending may seem inconsequential, but not only does it mean buying fewer new clothes (thus slowing down the fast fashion cycle), it also invites us into a new way of being. Mending is a powerful act of restoration, both for our clothes and for our relationship to the world. [...]
Much like meditation, mending teaches us to embrace imperfection, and to practice patience and acceptance with ourselves. Through mending, we become accustomed to seeing our hand in the things we own.”
Teaching Tools
Macro stitch diagrams
Photos for inspiration
Mended garments for inspiration
90 Minute Intro to Patching
Intro and Welcome (5 min)
Discussion: Why mend?
Grab a thrift store garment, if providing
Woven vs knit: which is your garment?
Sewing and mending demo (10 min)
Needles and threads
Give your needle a home: always use a pincushion, magnet, or cork
Cut thread with sharp scissors
Stiffen thread with water, beeswax, or saliva
Use a needle threader or self-threading needle if you are not confident threading by hand. Get to the good part!
Make a big loop of thread and tie at the end
Patching
Trim damaged fabric
Cut the patch to fit the damaged fabric
Decide if it’s going on the “wrong side” or “right side” of the garment
Secure the garment in an embroidery hoop with the damage at the center
Use a glue stick to secure the patch (the glue will wash out)
Use a running stitch, back stitch, or blanket stitch to secure the patch all the way around
Reinforce the patch with sashiko stitching or embroidery
DIY Time with facilitation (60 min)
Group by levels of experience; it’s helpful for less experienced menders to celebrate their successes together!
Help those with less experience get confident threading a needle and stitching, then check in with more advanced stitchers
Put on some nice music and provide snacks
Clean Up (5 min)
Do a sweep for needles on the floor - not a good surprise for anyone else!
Fabric scraps can be repurposed or thrown away
Thread ends can be thrown away
90 Minute Intro to Darning
Intro and Welcome (5 min)
Discussion: Why mend?
Grab a thrift store garment, if providing
Woven vs knit: which is your garment?
Sewing and mending demo (10 min)
Needles and threads
Give your needle a home: always use a pincushion, magnet, or cork
Cut thread with sharp scissors
Stiffen thread with water, beeswax, or saliva
Use a needle threader or self-threading needle if you are not confident threading by hand. Get to the good part!
Make a big loop of thread and tie at the end
Darning
Trim damaged fabric
Decide if you are darning on the “wrong side” or “right side” of the garment
Secure the garment to a darning mushroom, cardboard tube, or hard surface with a rubber band; place the damage at the center
Use a pencil or chalk to outline the shape of your mend
Start with up and down stitches, then start weaving the needle in and out of those stitches to create a woven mend
Use the same color thread for the whole darn, or switch colors for a two-tone woven mend
DIY Time with facilitation (60 min)
Group by levels of experience; it’s helpful for less experienced menders to celebrate their successes together!
Help those with less experience get confident threading a needle and stitching, then check in with more advanced stitchers
Put on some nice music and provide snacks
Clean Up (5 min)
Do a sweep for needles on the floor - not a good surprise for anyone else!
Fabric scraps can be repurposed or thrown away
Thread ends can be thrown away
Low Cost Alternatives
2” cut sections of cardboard shipping tube
Secure fabric with hair elastics or rubber bands
Use the round side as a darning surface
Use the open side as a mini embroidery hoop
Corks
Use as pincushions and/or thread bobbins
Scrap fabric, embroidery floss, etc.
Visit your local creative reuse center!
Materials
Needle and Thread
Darning
Step 1: Trim loose ends from the hole. Turn the garment inside out (optional) and sketch ~1/2” around the hole with chalk. Place a darning mushroom, ball, hairbrush, or cardboard tube under your work.
Step 2: Choose thread as thick as the weave of your material (you can bundle embroidery floss together for a thicker mend).
Step 3: Stitch across the hole and surrounding material to establish parallel threads; this is the warp of the fabric. Space your stitching as evenly as possible, about the width of one thread apart.
Step 4: Stitch across perpendicular to the warp, weaving the needle in and out of the warp. This is the weft.
Step 5: Tie off your ends and turn the garment right side out.
Sashiko
Sashiko (刺し子, literally “little stabs”) is a form of decorative reinforcement stitching (or functional embroidery) from Japan. Traditional sashiko was used to reinforce points of wear, or to repair worn places or holes with patches. The white cotton thread on the traditional indigo blue cloth gives sashiko its distinctive appearance.
Tips for threading a needle:
Cut thread with sharp scissors
Stiffen thread with water, beeswax, or saliva
Use a needle threader
Tips for making a knot:
Wrap the thread around your finger, crossing over itself.
Using your thumb, roll the wrapped thread off your finger.
Pull the tail of the thread away from the rest to tighten the knot.
Use a pincushion, magnet, or cork to hold the sharp point of the needle. Always put the needle away safely when you put it down.
Variations
Use multicolor thread, or use one color for the warp and another color for the weft.
Use a darning loom to create interesting patterns.
Running Stitch
Step 1: From the backside of the fabric, bring your needle up at your starting point.
Step 2: Now, place your needle back down through the fabric about a stitch length away from your starting point.
Step 3: Come back up through the back of the fabric about a stitch length away from your last stitch.
Step 4: Working forwards, continue making stitches, leaving a space in between each one.
Back Stitch
Step 1: From the backside of the fabric, bring your needle up, about a stitch length away from your starting point.
Step 2: Now, going backward, insert the needle down at the starting point
Step 3: Come back up a stitch length away from your last stitch.
Step 4: Insert the needle down through the same hole as the last stitch. This will join the stitches. Continue along the line in this way.
Chain Stitch
Step 1: Begin by bringing the needle up from the back of your fabric at your starting point.
Step 2: Then, with the embroidery floss off to the side, insert the needle back down through the same hole you just came up, but do not pull the floss all the way through.
Step 3: Now, bring your needle back up, about a stitch length ahead, making sure the embroidery floss goes around your needle. Pull the needle so the floss comes all the way through. You should have a loop of floss.
This is your first chain stitch.
Step 4: Now, putting the needle back through the hole you just came up, inside the loop. Repeat this process of coming up a stitch length ahead and creating a loop.
Step 5: When you’ve reached the end of the line you are stitching, make a tiny stitch over the last loop. This will secure it in place.
Directions and images from https://penguinandfish.com/
