We’ve altered gowns that walked red carpets, and we’ve made one beaded dress out of two, but there is nothing, NOTHING, we take more pride in than mending. It is easy to do, but incredibly challenging to do well. We approach a good mend like a painting restoration: using many colors of thread and matching up shapes and patterns. It’s honestly one of our favorite technical challenges. Well, not everyone at Silhouette dreams about color matching and stitch length, but Jana and I love the challenge of taking a ruined shirt and making it look like nothing ever happened.
When Jana has completed a mending project, she will thrust it in my face saying, “look at how good it looks!”. And then we will talk for the next thirty minutes on just that topic. I think this is how you know we are in the right profession. Because we are serious nerds about sewing technique.
Mending ripped clothes, especially with prints is something we specialize in. We get immense joy out of skillfully putting your clothes back together, almost completely masking the tear that was once there. I once mended the placket of a dinosaur print button down, and it was seriously one of the most amazing sewing feats I have ever accomplished. I used seven different thread colors and recreated the tiny green, purple, pink and yellow t-rexes and brachiosauruses on a white background. Not getting a photo is one of my biggest life regrets.
Thankfully, we’ve had the opportunity to mend quite a few other things. Check out these photos of some of our top mending hits and don’t say RIP to your ripped clothing!
