MendMarch 2025

MendMarch, the brainchild of Kate Sekules, is one of my favorite Instagram challenges.
Kate comes up with daily prompts

@visiblemend

and the cohort of menders post their interpretations.

Here are the links to mine!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with
Shelbee on the Edge

Crazy Quilt Dossier: 6.26 Friend Patch Visible Mends

Laurey created this patch for the Mend and Make Friends 2023 patch exchange.
We were patch pairs.
I decided to add it to the quilt, and I don't remember what I covered up.

This is the patch in March 2023 before it went on the quilt

Installed

Fast forward 15 months, it now looks like this

worse for wear, as they say

First I worked on the sad orange circle, lower right

French Knots! Blanket Stitching!

Then I decided to do preventative mending on all the other raw edges

It's a Bonanza of Blanket Stitching!

We'll see how this lasts.

MendMarch 2024

 MendMarch, the brainchild of Kate Sekules, is one of my favorite Instagram challenges.

Kate comes up with daily prompts

and the cohort of menders post their interpretations.

Here are the links to mine!

You are invited to see the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

I stopped on March 18. Life happened.

Mend March 2023

 I made a mending linkup in 2021 and I thought I'd do it again.

IG prompts from @visiblemend

I'll elaborate later.
Want to get this going now.

My posts are all from IG

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with...

MendMarch 2022

 MendMarch, the brainchild of Kate Sekules, is one of my favorite Instagram challenges.

Kate comes up with daily prompts

and the cohort of menders post their interpretations.

Here are the links to mine!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

#MendMarch 2021 conclusion

 During March, I did a lot of cross stitching:

On 3/31 we had a fun mendy Zoom:

Today, I finally got the sari tunic stitched and finished!

It can be worn two ways!

Original second hand sari, obtained summer 2019

Linking up with Shelbee's Edge of the Week

#MendMarch Update

 Yesterday, I actually FINISHED a mend.

Not being able to see what I'm sewing puts a spin on "blind hem".

And then took a selfie in it.

And was too lazy to post it to Instagram (for various technical reasons).

Did you notice my NEW SHOES?!!!!!

Fluevog Iggy

OMG! They are so beautiful!
I tried them on for sizing at Fluevog Venice, and I'm glad I did.

I needed 8s, which they didn't have in stock.

They took 10 days to arrive from Denver.
Oh, the anticipation!

(This quickly "pivoted" into a post about Fluevogs, didn't it? Haha)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness

#MendMarch 2021

Happy March! Have you started your mending yet?
I got a jump start last month by stitching up the front of this Ketzali "kimono" that I got off of Poshmark last April (!!!).

It was a super quick mend/ refurbish. Why did it take almost a year to accomplish? WHY?

This is the reason I participate in #mendMarch. 

I require a good Instagram challenge.

Whether you follow the IG prompts or not, do join in the mending circle below:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with [when link parties go live]

Shelbee's On the Edge

Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike

Mend March is coming!

Here are the Mend March prompts from Kate Sekules of @visiblemend

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kate Sekules (@visiblemend)

Oh do I have things to mend or refashion. The piles get bigger and bigger!

I've included three things in the link party below that I abandoned last summer.

Let's have another virtual mending circle -- add future, in progress, or completed mend links below: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with 

Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike

Shelbee's Spread the Kindness

#MendMAY starts tomorrow!

By popular demand, Kate of @visibleMend is doing a second month of mending prompts!

YAY!

After an April full of Stitching the World, I'm ready to get back to my mending.

I'm quite taken with the Tactile accountability chart that I created for Ali Edwards' One Little Word project:

Each circle is a day, each day I sewed the floss that I stitched into Stitching the World

I'm going to do something similar this month, maybe with fabric swatches?
Or do I do a "soft" version? I'll find out tomorrow! Heh.
I'll be posting my daily mending antics on Instagram @annembray, if you're curious.

Hey! Let's have a virtual Mending Circle!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It's Mending and Make It Yourself March!

Today as I was #slowly (Prompt #1 at @visiblemend) working my way through "Stitching the World", it came to me that today is March 1st and the Mending March Instagram challenges commence.
I interrupted my stitching, brought my threaded needle with me to the computer room (so I wouldn't misplace it),

and checked out the prompts for today.
Visiblemend has daily prompts:

View this post on Instagram

MendMarch! It’s on. Here you go, all the prompts—and I think this year, year three, they all make sense? Maybe not the 10th. Anyway, as before, you are welcome to—you must!—mess with them as you please. If you’re new here, this is technically an instagram challenge but really it’s an excuse to mend, share mends, make mendfriends, force yourself to face your mend pile, etc. It is fun. Do as many or few as you like, but do note that this year I am prizing you. Some lucky mender who manages ALL 31 wins a box of fabulous vintage mend supplies ie #haberdasheryporn Are you in? Tell me tell me! And ama if not making sense (ps when will dumb phone /instagram overlords stop autocorrecting “mends” to “men’s”?) #mends #itsmends #mendmarch #mendmarch2020 #visiblemending #darning #stopfen #repriser #raccommodage #zurcir #slowstitching #handstitch #slowfashion #instagramchallenge #igchallenge

A post shared by MendyKate (@visiblemend) on Feb 13, 2020 at 12:15pm PST

Wendy Ward, the creator of "MIY [make it yourself] March" is doing a slower approach this year.
She has a thought-provoking questionnaire in the above linked post which I stopped answering midway to write this.

Actually, I came over to SpyGirl to find some outfit links to add to the above answer and then realized I should be writing a post!

The green tunic:

I sewed this in This first appeared on SpyGirl July 2012 and was sewn before I was blogging for an Otis Fashion event, so I estimate 2005? I bought the fabric in downtown LA, at one of those $1/a yard places when Otis had its Fashion Campus located in the Cal Mart. It's that overdyed stripy rayon that was so popular in the late 80s.

The Italian rayon tunic:

I obtained this fabric when I was a Sample Cutter at Warren Z in 1986. It was sample yardage.
I sewed the tunic in January 2013. (I love the fact that blogging enables me to date things).

I've been doing my work-day outfit posts on Instagram. I've come up with a system for avoiding too much outfit repetition (I would be judged by the office-mate) and a key component is the phone app that I use to create the outfit/textile collages: Instasize.

I check the App to see what I've worn the past three weeks or so.
I also hang garments the order worn.

Here's another good question:

I answered with the tunic that I made in May 2018 at a workshop with Amy Bond:

I'm not sure if it's statistically the least worn me-made garment, but it's perhaps the most disappointing.
The base cloth is so scratchy and stiff. I even tried "softening" it by using it as a couch cover, but it was too scratchy for even that.
Sigh.

OK, gotta get back to stitching!
I gathered 93 answers to my 4 questions at the stARTup Art Fair two weeks ago.
That's a lot of journeys to stitch!
There's still time to join in, click here.

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday [maybe. Last one].
Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike