Patching Textiles: Insights from Visible Mending Educators on Wearability, Extending the Life of our Clothes, and Teaching Tangible Crafts

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Textiles have several characteristics that make them well suited for updates, sometimes called patching or mending, but textile repair is under-explored in the context of personal fabrication. This exploration is an urgent sustainability issue so we can extend the life of textiles and avoid producing more materials. In this paper we take a craft ethnography approach by interviewing 15 visible mending educators for insights into how they teach the techniques of repair and re-use so individuals can upcycle the textiles they already own. We discuss the values that menders bring to the practice, the teaching strategies they employ, the tangible teaching materials and tools of the practice, and introduce three types of teaching samplers: wearable samplers, sampler swatches, and practice samplers. Overall, these interviews provide insights for textile maker toolkits, textile personal fabrication, and how we can teach tangible hybrid crafts and sustainable making practices.