Sorry for the extra emails (for those who get this blog by email), but it turns out that our intrepid volunteer Sue will be doing clothing repairs today (September 29) as part of Kensington Pedestrian Sunday. Just like last time at Kensington, this will be in front of 63 Kensington Avenue, roughly 1-5pm.
Our event Saturday was a great success, but I will post full details of that later on 🙂
I’m excited to announce that the next Clothing Repairathon will be at St Lawrence Market, on Saturday September 28th. If you’ve got a dress with a missing button or a t-shirt with a hole, bring it on down and we’ll get that fixed up.
We’ll be there from 9:30am to 1:30pm. Specifically, we’ll be in the North building, next to the stage and close to the North Market Administration Office, right across from the Rowe Farms stall.
If you are interested in volunteering (with or without sewing experience), please let us know, we’re always looking for more help.
This event is also on Facebook.
Other news of note:
I’m happy to announce our next Repairathon.
It turns out that getting enough volunteers for weekend events in the summer can be a bit tricky, what with everyone’s vacations. We had some plans for July events but decided that it would be too difficult to run them without enough people. If you know anyone who might be interested in helping us out, let us know!
So, the next Repairathon will be… Saturday, August 17, noon to 3:30pm. We’ll be part of the York-Eglinton International Street Festival, at Maria A. Shchuka Library, 1745 Eglinton Avenue West. Our friends from the Repair Café will also have an information booth there. You can also find our event on Facebook.
Speaking of the Repair Café, their next event is even sooner, Saturday August 10, 10am-2pm. There will clothing repair there as well.
Lastly, did anyone see us in us in SNAP? They’ve got photos from our last major event, with volunteers Emily and Sue.
I’ve finally got the summary and photos from last Sunday’s event, but first a few items of news.
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
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 🙂
I’m exited to announce that the third Clothing Repairathon will take place on June 30th, at Kensington Pedestrian Sunday. You can find the event on Facebook as well.
Each summer, during a handful of Sundays at Kensington Market, the streets are blocked off to vehicles and the streets come to life (even more so than usual). There will be lots of vendors (food and otherwise) and other activities, and this time… a Clothing Repairathon.
You’ll find us at 63 Kensington Avenue. Our volunteers will be there from 1pm to 5pm, to fix your clothing, for free. Please limit what you bring to about 2-3 items per person to be fair to everyone, and don’t forget to thank the volunteers! We’ve been asked many times to accept monetary donations, and we’re still working to determine who that money would go to if we did collect any.
As always, we’re always looking for more volunteers, so if you’d like to help out, let us know. You don’t need to know how to sew, and it’s not a big commitment.
See you there!
I’m very happy to announce that we’ve settled on plans for our second Clothing Repairathon.
The Withrow Park Farmers’ Market opens for the season on Saturday May 18th, and we’ll be there. Market and Repairathon times are 9am-1pm. So come on down, bring any clothes you have needing repair, and we’ll do our best to fix them up. For free, of course.
We’re always looking for volunteers, so if you’re interested in helping out at this event or others, please let us know.
Also at the market on May 18th, aside from all the great food, will be a cookbook swap and free compost from the city. For those unfamiliar with Withrow Park, it is located at 725 Logan Avenue in Riverdale, just south of the Danforth. Easy access by TTC from Pape station.
See you all there!
Also… you can find this event on Facebook too.
It’s confirmed! The first Toronto Clothing Repairathon will be on April 20th at the Artscape Wychwood Barns, alongside The Stop’s Farmers’ Market and the Environment Day. We’ll be there from 10am to 2pm.
Come bring clothing for repair, bring donations of sewing supplies, and bring your friends. Also get some good food at the market and compost at the Environment Day.
We’ll have one table, probably with one person for machine sewing and one for hand sewing. We’re still looking for more volunteers and especially donations of sewing supplies (especially thread), so please contact us to arrange either.
If you are interested in being the location for the second Repairathon, please get in touch 🙂
See also the first Clothing Repairathon on Facebook.