Book recommendation: Mend it, Wear it, Love it!

Mend it, Wear it, Love it! – Stitch your way to a sustainable wardrobe is a new, highly-beginner-friendly “mending + more” book.

It’s a nuggetty little hardback book.

Mend it Wear it Love it spine view

The author is Zoe Edwards, who will be familiar to those who have participated in Me-Made-May. Zoe blogs at Sozowhatdoyouknow. This is her first book.


So…you might be thinking: another mending book. What makes this one different?

This book assumes absolutely no prior knowledge or even sewing machine ownership. It’s designed to support beginners to care for their clothes.

The mission is to help people make their clothes last longer, rather than throw them out simply because they need mending or basic alterations.

This book gives you the skills to create and update your own sustainable wardrobe of outfits based on what you already own.

Zoe Edwards

The book is cleverly divided into three parts:

Mending. All the mending basics are covered: buttons, hems, split seams, tears, zips, darning, etc.

Wearing. Basic alterations to revitalize unloved garments so you can wear them (shorten/lengthen, waist darts, refit seams, adding pockets).

Loving. Clothes care (laundry, ironing, storage, stain removal/disguise).

Mend it Wear it Love it contents page
Mend it Wear it Love it Mending a tear
Mend it Wear it Love it adding waist darts
Mend it Wear it Love it patch pocket

Mend it! Wear it! Love it! has very clear step-by-steps with plenty of hand-holding. The instructions are all for hand sewing with options for a sewing machine. There are notes for left-handers.

Interspersed among the mending tips are pages with inspiration photos:

Mend it Wear it Love it inspo page
Mend it Wear it Love it inspiration page Visible mending

Having said that this is a great book for beginners, I picked up a neat trick to mend this collar (which has already been turned) to try and give this work shirt another year or two:

Mend it Wear it Love it repairing a collar

I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a teen interested in clothes and old enough to start buying clothes with their own money. They probably won’t be interested in the laundry section! But the creative/refashioning part could be a hit.

I would also recommend it to anyone who needs to mend their clothes but doesn’t really know how to get started.

Put with a mending kit, it would be a practical gift for someone.

Mend it! Wear it! Love it! comes out this week. The RRP is $AU19.99.

Cheers!


PS – (should I have put this at the beginning?) In the interests of full disclosure, for this blog post I received a free review copy from Penguin Random House Australia after I emailed them and asked for one.

2 Comments

  1. Michelle Cheetham on February 1, 2021 at 10:13 am

    Oooh, I have a teenager leaving home at the end of the year. Christmas present sorted already!

    • lizhaywood on February 1, 2021 at 10:34 am

      It’s a classic “from Mum” present!
      L (aged 12) had a flip through with a few “hmmms….“on the refashioning pages.

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