Category Archives: recap

YIMBY Festival

Our next Repairathon is going to be part of the fantastic YIMBY Festvial. The Yes In My Backyard Festival is…

a celebration of community-based ideas and action in Toronto. The festival is free and open to all, providing a social space for people and groups involved in locally-driven community development to gather, exchange ideas and strategies to affect change, and imagine the future of our city.

At this year’s YIMBY Festival, we’ll welcome 60+ Toronto-based groups involved in community development, civic literacy, neighbourhood improvement, environmental action, arts and culture, and economic development. The Marketplace area will focus on collaborative consumption, featuring organizations and businesses that are helping to strengthen the shareable economy movement in Toronto.

The festival is Saturday, September 27, 11am–4pm at University of Toronto Schools, 371 Bloor Street West, just by Spadina. Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers. Please do not bring clothing later than 3pm, to give time to complete everything.

Our last event at SharefestTo was a great success. I didn’t post a recap largely because I forgot to take any photos, but you can see photos and comments by everyone else on Twitter. There’s also one photo of us on Facebook. Thanks so much to volunteers Jenny, Barbara, Ruth, Emily, Eva, and Michael (myself).

Other items of note:

A Sewing Workshop run by Transition Toronto is coming up on September 11, 7pm to 9pm at the Toronto Tool Library east location, 1803 Danforth Ave. The cost is $8 for Transition members, $10 otherwise
The next Repair Cafe is September 13, 10am-2pm at Skills for Change, 791 St. Clair Ave. West
The great Really Really Free Market is sadly on hold for the time being. They need some new volunteers, especially anyone with a car or cargo bike. It’s been a monthly event where anyone can leave or get things at no cost. When the event is over any leftover items must be taken to charities, hence the need for transportation. If you are interested in helping, please contact them at rrfmarket@gmail.com.

Brickworks Recap

This past Saturday the Toronto Clothing Repairathon made its debut appearance at the Evergreen Brickworks Farmer’s Market, as part of the 100 in a Day event that took place across the city. Our enthusiastic volunteers spent the afternoon stitching tears, mending seams, and breathing new life into people’s ripped and tattered clothing.

Our volunteers for the day were Barbara, Ruth, Bianca, Emily, and Michael, and our customers were ecstatic with the work they did. (We were ecstatic with the generosity of our customers, who purchased coffee, samosas, and other treats for us to much on while we worked. How sweet!)

This Repairathon wasn’t as busy as some past events, but this gave us an opportunity to interact with our lovely customers, take on a few more time-consuming repairs, and explore the farmer’s market, which boats a huge array of vendors, produce, fresh meat, and just about everything else you can think of. Overall, it was a really fun day and we helped lots of people see their old clothing in a new light.

Here are some photos of the event:

Bianca, Emily, Barbara, and Ruth repairing garments and chatting with customers

Barbara posing with a happy customer after converting a long-sleeved shirt with a giant elbow hole into a short-sleeved shirt

Our volunteers hard at work

No more spilled gummy bears for this man after Barbara repaired a hole in his grocery bag

And another happy customer, who no longer commits an act of indecent exposure every time she wears her favourite jeans

Other upcoming events

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the next Repair Café
We may have several Repairathons in July, which we’ll announce as soon as we finalize the details.

Wychwood Recap and upcoming events

First, a note on upcoming events:

The Repair Cafe is having their next event (and first anniversary) tomorrow (Saturday).
I expect we’ll have two events soon, on May 25th and June 7th; details to come. If you’re interested in volunteering, please join our volunteer mailing list.

Our first event of 2014 was huge. We were busy from the moment we started until we packed up. The Stop’s Farmers’ Market is bustling. Volunteers were Barbara, Jenny, Ruth, Nicole, and myself (Michael). Thanks to all of them, and to Ruth and Nicole for joining us for the first time.

Thanks also to all those who bought us volunteers great food and drinks from the market 🙂

Here are some photos from the event.

everybody hard at work

“customer” with Barbara (on the right)

“customers” with Nicole (on the right)

“customer” with Ruth (on the right)

“customers” with Ruth

doll surgery

“customers” with their doll

pink glove: fixed!

“customer” with Barbara

Jenny (on the left) with “customer”

St Lawrence Market Recap

I’m a little behind in posting this, but we had a fantastic event at St Lawrence Market on September 28th. But first, news from elsewhere:

Our friends at the Edmonton Repairathon had their first trial event, which was covered by Metro News.
There was a Repair Café October 19. The next one is November 16.
There’s a clothing swap on the Danforth on October 27.
The Toronto Tool Library‘s new Danforth location is now open. We may even host a Repairathon there sometime 🙂

The St Lawrence Market went well from the beginning. Shortly after I arrived to set up, I was interviewed for 680 News and we were heard on the radio about an hour later. Unfortunately I haven’t found any recording. Photos from the event will also be in the upcoming issue of Snapd Downtown Toronto.

Our volunteers for the event were Michael (myself), Jenny, Mardy, Bebi, Bianca, Ernie, and Stephan. Thanks so much to all of you for making this happen. Also thanks very much to our generous “customers,” who provided us with some excellent fruit and pastries from the market.

Stephan, Jenny, Mardy, Bebi, Bianca, and Michael, hard at work. We need a bigger table 🙂

A customer learns to sew 🙂

Ernie with a customer and his repaired bag

Bebi showing how to use a sewing machine

Mardy with a customer and her repaired purse

Thanks also to Renata Janiszewska, who chose to thank us with a piece of her artwork, shown below. Created in 2013.

Lastly, we may be taking it a bit slow over the next few months. As always, we’ll post here on our blog when we have a date for the next event.

August Recap and News Roundup

Just over a week ago was our fourth event. I’ll share news of that, but first, there are some other items of note.

The Art of Finishing is a workshop on Wednesday at the Toronto Tool Library on staining and finishing wood, as well as “refinishing, and fixing nicks and scratches in furniture.” Speaking of the Tool Library, they are now raising money to open a second tool library and makerspace. Take a look and maybe you’ll be inclined to contribute.

Our friends at the Repair Café will be participating in the St. Clair Centennial Celebration on September 14th, so it will be another good chance to get your stuff repaired.

The Repair Café joined us back on August 17th, when we shared a tent together at the York-Eglinton International Street Festival.

We had an excellent crew of volunteers: Michael (myself), Barbara, Shelly, Sue, Monica, Susan, and Rosemary. Susan was nice enough to bring her sewing machine. Here’s a couple of photos from the event.

Barbara, working on a backpack

Closeup of some of the backpack work

Susan, sewing a hole in a pair of pants by hand, before adding a patch over top for added strength

Susan with the repaired pants and their happy owner

Thanks so much to our volunteers, as well as to the library staff at the Maria A. Shchuka library for inviting us to come.

For those that missed us there, we’ll let you know when we have a date for our next event. Remember, you can always sign up to get notified by email.

Kensington Recap and more

I’ve finally got the summary and photos from last Sunday’s event, but first a few items of news.

Tomorrow, Repairathon volunteers will be at both the Really Really Free Market and the Toronto Repair Café. We won’t have a sewing machine, but we should have a good supply of thread. While not full-sized Repairathons, this will be our first time at two events at once, not to mention how soon it is after our last event.
Our new volunteers Emily and Sue (see recap below) are so fantastic, they want to come back to Kensington Pedestrian Sunday again. The next one is July 28th, and I expect we will be there. Fuller details on this to come.
If you’ve been following our blog on our website, or by getting posts by email, then you may not have noticed that the Repairathon is also on Twitter. Twitter isn’t for everyone, but I use it to post shorter messages more frequently than on the website, and sometimes highlight interesting news or other events that don’t make it onto the website.
The Repairathon has been getting more and more interest. We’re starting to get asked to hold events at particular times and places, and we will let you know when we’ve decided on any. I have also gotten a request from someone in Edmonton on advice on starting a Clothing Repairathon there. I hope it will be the second of many cities to join us!

Okay, on to notes from our third Repairathon, at Kensington Market on Pedestrian Sunday.

Our volunteers Sunday were Emily, Sue, and Michael (myself). Look forward to more information about who are volunteers are in an upcoming post. I took the photos this time, so I’m not in any of them, but HiMY SYeD was walking by, loved the idea, and posted photos on the Toronto Wiki, and I’m in some of those.

Over the course of the day we “only” repaired about fifteen or so articles of clothing, but we were still pretty busy most of the time. Our first work came in 20 minutes before we were scheduled to start, and we were still working away on last-minute items half an hour after our scheduled end.

We handled rips and tears, missing buttons, and more. The three of us kept handing off a man’s shirt to each other, not wanting to tackle the awful state of the worn-away collar until Sue finally decided to use some ‘new’ fabric from the back of the collar as a patch on the top, even aligning the grid pattern… it may be the most impressive repair I’ve seen, and the description doesn’t do it justice. Of course, it turns out the owner only wanted us to fix a small hole in the shirt that we hadn’t even noticed. Oops :-).

I showed one man how easily it was to replace a button, and I think next time, he’ll try it himself. This really underscores how much our group needs to figure out the best way to teach repair skills. Emily also provided a lot of advice, as people asked her all sorts of questions about making a tablecloth, a tie-dyed toga, a more.

Most people who came by read about us in NOW magazine, thanks to a nice mention in their can’t-miss events. We also had quite a few people walk by and excitedly run home to bring us something to fix. We love the smiles on people’s faces when we help make their favourite clothing wearable again.

Emily and Sue, hard at work

Someone decided we could hang finished clothing until it was picked up, and a nice store-owner across the street lent us some hanger

Emily with happy “customers”

These two were glad they walked by our table that day

: Sue between happy “customers.” Sue did the yoga pants, Michael fixed the sweater

Overall, it was a lot of fun, and we couldn’t have done it without Emily and Sue. Also thanks very much to Patrick of Pedestrian Sunday for arranging for us to be there and making sure we had a table and electricity. Looking forward to our next events 🙂

Second Repairathon a Success

Thanks to this past Saturday’s Clothing Repairathon, I can now say that we run events (plural) without that being an exaggeration. We had a lot of fun, fixed a lot of clothes, and learned a lot of things that we’ll use to tweak how we run our next event.

This time our volunteers were Michael (me), Barbara, Bianca, and Monica, as well as a few attendees who decided to help out. The great team at the Withrow Park Farmers’ Market not only provided us with a tent and chairs, but also drew us an excellent chalk sandwich board.

We sort of lost count, but I think we repaired around thirty articles of clothing. That’s a lot, and a full 50% more than during our first event. A number of people brought whole bags of clothes, so in future we’ll limit to something like two or three articles per person, to make sure we have a chance to get to everyone.

The most interesting thing this time was zippers. Our first event had no zipper issues, but this time we had around a half-dozen, many of which we were able to fix. If this keeps up, we’ll have to gain some zipper expertise.

Many people wanted to thank us, so this time we let our “customers” know that they could get us something to eat from the market. Everyone was so generous, we ended up with coffee, cheeses, samosas, and other great things. Our volunteers were a little over-dedicated; I had to force a few people to take a food break, and hand-feed another who wouldn’t stop sewing :-).

Left to right: Monica, a “customer”, Charlotte (materials donor), Bianca, and Michael

Monica, hard at work on some jeans

Sandwich board art by Withrow Park Farmers’ Market

a selection of our pinks, purples, and blue threads

Barbara, assessing the placement of an elbow patch

satisfied customer, with the skirt’s hem repaired

customer-turned-volunteer, and a benefactor of excellent cheeses

Our cutest customer doesn’t like bibs, so her mom had us sew waterproof bib fabric onto her dress

Barbara sewing a purse, despite my trying to pack us up

Everyone else had packed up, but our dedicated volunteers couldn’t stop

Thanks everyone for coming out, thanks to those who bought us some food, thanks to the Withrow Park Farmers’ Market, and thanks especially to our fantastic volunteers. We couldn’t have done it without you.

We’ll let you know when and where our next event will be as soon as we get that figured out.

First Repairathon Recap

This past Saturday was the first Clothing Repairathon, and I am happy to say that it was a great success.

Our volunteers were Michael (that’s me), Barbara, Mardy, Kim, and Bianca, armed with thread, buttons, and other great supplies from our generous donors. We were scheduled to begin at 10am, but by 9:45 people were bringing their clothes and we got started early.

We attracted a lot of attention. Not just by people needing repair work and dropping off donations of sewing supplies, but pretty much everyone that passed by wanted to see what we were doing. The most common question by far was “will you be back again every week?” So many people told us what a great idea it was, and were also surprised to realize that all repairs were free :-).

Most clothes came during the first half of the event, but we were still pretty busy from beginning to end. We’d planned to have two people sewing at a time, but actually had as many as four, and so we ended up taking over the next table at the market when that vendor left for the day.