Stylebook Book Club - Book 6
A few of you have told me that you’re challenging yourselves to not shop for clothes or at least reduce your shopping habit in 2019. That inspired me to look into how people make clothes last longer, and I came across Make and Mend by Jessica Marquez at my library. It’s a wonderful book on the art of sashiko-inspired embroidery, a technique from Japan that has been used for years to repair garments.
Even though the technique has existed since around 1600, the patterns look fresh and modern and add nice textural quality to clothes. Author Jessica Marquez walks through how to stitch these simple patterns to fix existing clothing and make new items too. I actually wound up using some of the stitching techniques on the top I sewed from last month’s book club selection. Even if you aren’t a big crafter, you can definitely tackle these projects!
- Jess Atkins, Stylebook Co-founder
Jess's Take-Away and Discussion
I didn’t have any clothes to mend, but I did start a new sewing project applying Jessica’s embroidery techniques. I’m working on a jersey wrap skirt with the running stitch and so far it looks pretty good. I love how sturdy the fabric feels after the sashiko-style embroidery is applied, I’m actually hoping a pair of my jeans starts to wear out so I can apply the technique to mend something!
Discussion:
Comment on the Instagram post below to tell me the most helpful tip you learned from the book.
- Have you taken on any of the projects from the book?
- What is your favorite embroidery pattern from the book?
- Do you mend your clothes?
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The first week of the month: I’ll post on Instagram about what I got from the book and I hope you’ll share your thoughts with me there too!.
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