The beautiful properties of natural fibres remain long after the product is grown and garment created – they’re worthy of being treasured, mended and adapted.

This super-fine merino jumper gathered from a New Zealand op shop during a 2011 trip with daughter Lily is treasured for its softness, warmth and lustre. It’s upcycled as Sew 155 to overcome two issues, the tight  neck and newly emerged holes.

Many say they don’t have time to mend. They’re too busy doing more important things (earning money, social media, drinking wine, shopping, exercising, pampering, ferrying offspring etc). Certainly essential chores absorb our time, more so at busy life stages.

But the sense of accomplishment and soul satisfaction that come from pausing to mend and adapt a quality garment rather than shopping for new are immeasurable and, I believe, under-rated at this point in our history. 

I remember being surprised/shocked by the amount of material the builder threw into the skip bin when we had our home extended a decade ago. It saved time and therefore money to buy new instead of upcycling used materials. However, he did source and install flooring from an old squash court to match the narrow Crows Ash floorboards – and willingly rescued and de-nailed original crazed-paint boards from the back of the old house when I asked him to. These became  a bathroom mirror frame, thanks to my clever picture-framing friend Toni Scott.

And so to Sew 155. I cut off the turtle neck of this soft superfine jumper then did two rows of zigzag stitch on the machine to secure the cut edge before turning the neckline under and further securing with a decorative tacking stitch using knitting wool. Having noticed small holes emerging (probably munched by something during summer), I cut the offcut neckline into strips (see tomorrow’s upcycled skirt) and used small diamond portions of this to machine sew over the holes. I will keep this off-cut in a safe place if/when more holes emerge at a later date. In my book, the evidence of mending becomes a badge of honour and respect for natural fibres that are increasingly rare, since two-thirds of all new clothing is made from synthetic petroleum-derived fibres.