Mending
Most quilters dread seeing someone sidle up to them and ask with hope in their eyes, if they could ‘repair’, ‘shorten’, ‘alter’ a garment or recover furniture or car seats or motorcycle seats.
The motorcycle seats were easy—the old one provided a precise pattern, the pieces were not huge but not too small either and I could find the vinyl covered cording in our local fabric store–then later I made it myself,
I’ve repaired coat pockets, tow straps for sailboats, shortened some sleeves, re-sewn some sleeves, sewn on buttons.
This time I was asked to repair a dog leash.
It wasn’t hard and I had a nice bit of denim on hand–my go-to fabric for strength and durability.
And then I thought about how mending relationships. They are never the same afterward, perhaps still sturdy but the area that has been patched is visible—perhaps not to outsiders but certainly to the participants.
Some problems seem to be too big to fix, in others, the fix is too fragile to hold,
Toby is our Border Collie rescue mis. She is more than a handful at times–thus the ripped leash. It should hold for several more years. We want this leash to be well used and worn.
Sylvia Weir Art 