I’ve written up a long and boring summary of the repairathon’s history and outcomes on my personal blog.
Author Archives: admin
The Repairathon has closed
The Toronto Clothing Repairathon has not run an event since the COVID-19 pandemic, and our supplies were donated on to the Repair Café Toronto, so it’s about time that was reflected in our website.
We’ll keep the site around a bit longer, and who knows, we may even post more in the future.
We had a fun and repaired a lot of clothes.
Anyone looking to volunteer or to get their clothing repaired can check out the Repair Café.
October news roundup
Next Repairathon
November 5th at the Wychwood Barns. We will also be running another event in January in Regent Park, details to come.
Repairathon in London
Filthy Rebena, a vintage store in London, Ont. is hosting a repairathon on Thursday, October 26th. Tell your friends in London!
What to do with unwanted sewing machines
People often wish to donate sewing machines to us. We don’t have the capacity for this now, so we are working on a list of places which do. Let us know in the comments below if your are with or know of an organization that could accept sewing machines, especially if they can take machines which may need repairs.
Supplies we’re looking for
Our great volunteers got together to sort and organize all of our supplies, and see what we’re missing. If you’ve got fabric scissors, a seam ripper, an iron, a three-prong extension cord, zippers, or needle-nose pliers you’d be willing to part with, let us know.
Volunteers Barbara, Jenny, Bianca, and Carmel organizing our supplies.
Volunteers wanted
We get asked to run a lot of events, all around and even outside of Toronto. We’d love to do them all. If you’d be interested in volunteering at a repairathon in your neighbourhood, we’d love your help. No experience required.
Repairathon at Wychwood Barns on May 8th for Upcycle Day
Join us May 8th at Wychwood Barns for Upcycle Day, between 10 am and 2 pm.
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.
SharefestTO
SharefestTO is this Wednesday evening! From the Sharefest page,
Come meet local organizations involved in Toronto’s sharing economy and discover how to make sharing part of your lifestyle.
…
We invite you to join us for a night of great food, drinks, conversation and activities.
The Toronto Clothing Repairathon will be there along with the Repair Cafe, AutoShare, Bike Share Toronto, The Toronto Tool Library, Snakes and Lattes, Trade School Toronto, Swapsity, Not Far From the Tree, and quite a few other great organizations. Some will be interactive, such as ours (repairing clothing,) and Swapsity, which is hosting a book swap.
Sharefest is Wednesday, July 16, 6:30pm – 9:30pm, at CSI Annex. That’s 720 Bathurst Street.
See you there!
Other upcoming events by others:
- Transition Toronto is hosting a sewing workshop on September 11. $8 for members, $10 otherwise.
- Upcoming Repair Cafes
- Aug 9 at Toronto Reference Library
- Sep 13 at Skills for Change
- Oct 18 at Toronto Public Library – Cedarbrae Branch
- Nov 22 at Skills for Change
Repairathon tomorrow at Brickworks
Just a reminder that we’ll be repairing clothes tomorrow (Saturday) at Evergreen Brickworks, as part of 100 in 1 Day. We’ll be there from 9am-12:30am, alongside their fantastic farmers’ market. Also don’t forget, you can you can get there by bike, TTC from Davisville, or free bus from Broadview station. I believe we will be at the south end near the entrances from the parking lot.
Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers.
Other items to note
- If you can’t make it to the Repairathon, check out the Really Really Free Market, which is also tomorrow.
- A week after the Repairathon is the next Repair Café, this time at North York Central Library. Their events are great, and they do repairs of everything, not just clothing.
- The Toronto Environmental Alliance is running a Waste-Free Challenge. They’ve posted 10 simple actions you can take right now to reduce waste, and they’ve got prizes too 🙂
June 7 at Evergreen Brickworks
Our next event will be our first one at Evergreen Brickworks. This will be part of 100 in 1 Day, with many events intended to make our cities better places, in four Canadian cities happening all at the same time. You can see the full list of Toronto events on their website.
We’ll be there Saturday June 7th, from 9am-12:30am, alongside their fantastic farmers’ market. For those of you who haven’t been, Evergreen Brickworks is also a great nature spot, and has all sorts of other activities. You can get there by bike, TTC from Davisville, or free bus from Broadview station.
Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers. See you there!
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”
Reminder: Wychwood, Tomorrow
Just a quick reminder that our first Repairathon for 2014 is tomorrow, at the Wychwood Barns. Details are on the original post. Thanks to the attention we’ve had including blogTO and CBC’s Metro Morning (I was interviewed early this morning), I expect we’ll be quite busy.
We’ll probably have one event in May and another in June, so you’ll be hearing about those in the weeks go come. In the meantime, there’s also the next Repair Cafe on May 10th.
See you tomorrow 🙂