Learn to mend

Day 8 is about mending...  a necessary evil!  I love sewing but hate hemming, sewing on buttons and all those other boring but necessary skills!  I'm even walking around outside with a coat that has 2 buttons in the pocket that fell off so I will complete this assignment and sew them on as soon as I'm done typing!

I love today's suggestions on finding how to's online!..  wish that was an option as I was learning.  My learning was from reading several books and was a star home ec student that loved sewing as soon as I leaned how!  It was the first thing that clicked and I could do well.  So well that against most sane people's advice I studied Apparel Design/Manufacturing in college.  Now working as a Technical Designer I tell factories how to sew all day long so I need to sometimes tell myself to sew on that button or adjust that hem and think about those in that factor on the other side of the world following my instructions.

I still do enjoy sewing and keep up with reading on it.  Lately I've been pondering taking a few classes or workshops for some inspiration.  A few on my dream list are:
Alabama Chanin Workshop - I love what Natalie Chanin created in Alabama, besides beautiful clothing,  the community around creating it and bringing back good old made in USA charm.
The Makerie Retreats - I would love to be transported away into the pages of Sweet Paul Magazine... or one of their retreats!  I see them crafting it up on instagram and would love to join the party!
Etsy Labs - Somewhere I saw an image of the Etsy offices and it's as awesome looking at I imagined.  But what I can't get out of my head is the labs and crafting events!
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting...  if you know of any awesome workshops I should put on my list please share!

I should mention that I am lucky enough to live not terribly far from one of the best sewing teachers on PBS (we went to the same college and studied the same program!), the Sewing with Nancy, Nancy Zieman!  Her Sewing Weekend is a lot of fun with some great seminars.

Anyway, back to the boring part of sewing... mending!  Here's a recent project of mine on the topic. I don't know why I bought jeans already ripped up.  I'm too old for that.  I quickly realized I hate having holes in my jeans and patched them up in kind of a quilting manor.  I put a purple/pink swirly cotton print and hand stitched with pink thread.  I love the pop of colors much more than I liked the breeze of all those holes!

My Japanese stitching inspired patch job