In Praise of the Mending Basket and Clothes Mending

A stitch in time saves nine. So the saying goes and there’s good reason to pick up the age-old tradition of the mending basket. Even if you don’t put your things in an actual basket. Learn what can be mended, the supplies you need and the best way to go about the work.

This post seemed timely for me to write since I’ve been on a mending kick for a week and a half now.

It all started when I was reading Little House in the Big Wood (affiliate link) to my son. Just about every night, Ma sits and work on things in her mending basket as Laura and Mary fall asleep. It reminded me of all the things that needed mending in our little home.

Mending is a great way to make do and create less waste.

A Mending Basket Poem

While doing some research for this post, I came across a poem by Abbe Kenne from Pacific Rural Press, Volume 31, Number 8, 20 February 1886.

It really captures the concept of a mending basket so I want to share it with you. When you read it, I encourage you to keep the name of this blog, Busy Hands Quiet Hearts, in mind.

The poem goes like this:

Mother’s Mending Basket.

Over and under, and in and out,
The swift little needle flies;
For always between her and idleness the mending basket lies;
And the patient hands, though weary,
Work lovingly on and on
At tasks that never are finished,
For mending is never done.

She takes up the father’s stocking,
And skillfully knits in the heel.
And smooths the seam with a tender touch,
That he may no roughness feel;
And her thoughts to her merry girlhood
And her early wifehood go,
And she smiles at the first pair of stockings
She knit so long ago.

Then she speaks to the little maiden
Learning to knit at her side,
And tells her about those stockings
Uneven and shapeless and wide —
“I had to ravel them out, my clear;
don’t be discouraged, but try,
And after a while you’ll learn to knit
As swift and even as I”.

She takes up a little white apron,
And thinks of a woeful face
of her darling when she came crying:
“Oh ! mamma, I’ve torn my lace.”
So she mended the child’s pet apron;
Then she took up a tiny shoe,
And fastened a stitch that was broken,
And tied the ribbon of blue.

The maiden has wearied of working,
And gone away to her play;
The sun in the west is sinking,
At the close of the quiet day.
Now the mother’s hands are resting
Still holding a stocking of red,
And her thoughts in the twilight shadow
To the far of future have fled.

“Oh where will the little feet wander
Before they have time to rest?
Where will the bright heads be pillowed
When the mother’s loving breast
Is under the Spring’s blue violets,
And under the Summer grass.
When over her fall the Autumn leaves,
And the storms of Winter pass?

And a prayer from her heart she utters:
“God bless them, my dear ones all!
Oh! may it be many, many years
Ere sorrow to them befall!”
To her work from the mending basket
She turns with a heart at rest!
For she knows that to husband and children
She is always the first and best.

– Abbe Kenne

Just like this mother, I prefer to do my mending with my child by my side. He enjoys ‘helping’ and I enjoy teaching him that we don’t just throw out things when they break, we repair them – all of them.

What Can be Mended?

The answer is everything. As you heard in the poem, socks, aprons and shoes were on the list that day. On this current mending kick, I’ve mended the following items:

• 1 Dress hem
• 3 Bath towels
• 1 Winter coat, seams at the arm and holes in the pockets
• 2 Much loved stuffed animals
• 1 Sweater
• 1 Long-sleeved woollen shirt for my son.

As long as something is made up of fabric you can probably mend it. It’s up to decide if it’s worth mending.

How to Decide if It’s Worth Mending

When you make a decision, you should consider the following:

Your skills
Can you fix this, or do you know someone who can? Could you learn the skill from Youtube?

The size of the problem
Some tears are just too big to be fixed neatly enough for the item still to be useable in its current configuration. Maybe it would be better to dedicate the item to your rag bin?

The time required
If it’s going to take you a long time to fix something, you may want to consider how much it would cost to replace the item.

Your financial situation
There are times when, even if your skills are lacking, the tear is enormous and it will take you three hours to fix, it’s still better to fix the item as best you can and not have to spend money on replacing it and that’s okay. Do the best job you can and be proud of the homesteading skills you’re cultivating.

The Supplies Needed For a Mending Basket

You really don’t need much. A needle, thread and a scissor will be enough for most projects. A thimble may be useful as well. I have an old fashioned sewing box, which I keep all my supplies in.

For some mending projects, hand stitching might not be the best option. In those cases, it’s useful to have a basic sewing machine using either the straight stitch or the zigzag stitch.

If you don’t have any thread yet, you can often find a starter pack in many colours cheaply.

I got one 11 years ago when I moved away from my parents and it’s still going strong. The pack means I’m always able to find a thread that looks good with what I’m mending.

If you already have some tread on hand and don’t want to buy any more, you’ll find that most projects can be done with white or black thread.

You may also need some kind of patch fabric if the area that needs mending is too big to be sewn shut. In that case, it can look really well with some kind of visible mending. You can use scraps and other small pieces of fabric like fat quarters.

If you don’t have any sewing equipment, I would get a basic sewing kit (affiliate link). You can get them from around $4 on Amazon. Most are ‘travel kits’ (affiliate link) but you can also find some really pretty kits that come in a box (affiliate link).

To Use an Actual Basket or Not

While the idea of an actual mending basket really speaks to me, it’s not feasible in our home. Little hands would empty it all the time.

Not to mention, we don’t have enough clothes to leave items in a mending basket until I get around to actually mending them. Let’s face it, it occasionally takes a while. Okay, it almost always takes a while.

If you have room for it an actual basket can work. Just place it somewhere you see it frequently.

You can also practise the “Oh no, we have a ton of things that need to be mended”-approach. In this approach, you keep using the things that need to be mended until you can no longer stand it.

I wouldn’t recommend this approach. It’s stressful to keep noticing all the things that need to be fixed. Don’t ask me how I know that.

Better Than a Mending Basket

The best option, the one I strive to embrace, is the ‘see it – mend it’ approach. If you use this approach there’s never a need for a basket. Whenever you notice that something needs to be mended, you mend it!

Simple in theory, not as simple in practice. Again, don’t ask me how I know this…

This option means you either stop what you’re doing and mend the item right away or you make a note to mend it that same day. It really doesn’t take long to mend most things.

I promise you’ll feel really accomplished. It’s not worth the stress of trying to hide that unravelled seem from the world. Just do it – NOW!

The Work is Never Done

That first verse of the poem really speaks to me:

Over and under, and in and out,
The swift little needle flies;
For always between her and idleness the mending basket lies;
And the patient hands, though weary,
Work lovingly on and on
At tasks that never are finished,
For mending is never done.

Mending never ends. You may find yourself at the end of your current pile. Congratulations!

Now, make sure you aren’t faced with a pile again. Unless you have enough room and clothes to let a pile build up, then you can do as you please.

My best advice, the one I need to take myself, is to mend things as you see the need. Get them done that day! If that doesn’t work for you, make a list and have a weekly (or monthly) day where you gather up everything on your list and get it done.

Some weeks, there won’t be anything to mend. Other weeks you’ll have a mountain.

Trust me on this one, it’s worth getting it done. Those towels I mentioned earlier, they’ve needed to be fixed for three years. Don’t judge me! I had a child and… other excuses.

Do you know how long it took to fix all three towels? 7 min. That’s including finding the towels and my sewing supplies, changing the thread three times as they were all different colours and actually sewing them.

So gather up those things you know need to be mended and get started today!

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