Category Archives: Uncategorized

Clothing Repairathon at the Junction Farmers Market Oct. 20

Toronto Clothing Repairathon is excited to be a part of the Junction Farmers’ Market Zero Waste campaign (2960 Dundas St West) on Saturday, October 20. Volunteers will be mending clothes free of charge between 9am – 1pm. Bring those holey sweaters, ripped jeans and shirts missing a button and volunteers will do their best to repair them. If you’d like to learn how to do repairs, volunteers will be happy to show you and help you mend your clothes.

Maximum two items per person to ensure we help as many people as possible. And keep in mind, that we don’t do alterations, just repairs. Hope to see you there!

As a volunteer-driven group, we’re always looking for sewers of all skill levels. We’re a friendly and fun group who loves sharing our skills and giving back to the community. Love to help out? Please sign up at app.repairathon.com to hear about upcoming events.

Clothing Repairathon at Diane Frankling Co-op Oct. 18

Toronto Clothing Repairathon is excited to host an event at the Diane Frankling Co-op  (85 Bleecker Street) on Thursday, October 18. Volunteers will be mending clothes free of charge in the Community Room between 6pm – 9pm. Bring those holey sweaters, ripped jeans and shirts missing a button and volunteers will do their best to repair them. If you’d like to learn how to do repairs, volunteers will be happy to show you and help you mend your clothes.

Maximum two items per person to ensure we help as many people as possible. And keep in mind, that we don’t do alterations, just repairs. Hope to see you there!

As a volunteer-driven group, we’re always looking for sewers of all skill levels. We’re a friendly and fun group who loves sharing our skills and giving back to the community. Love to help out? Please sign up at app.repairathon.com to hear about upcoming events.

Clothing Repairathon Jan. 20 in Regent Park

Don’t ditch your clothes, get them stitched! Volunteers will be mending clothes for free at the EarlyON Child and Family Centre (38 Regent St.), January 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bring those holey sweaters, ripped jeans and shirts missing a button and volunteers will do their best to repair them. If you’d like to learn how to do repairs, volunteers will be happy to show you and help you mend your clothes.

Maximum two items per person to ensure we help as many people as possible. And keep in mind, that we don’t do alterations, just repairs. Hope to see you there!

As a volunteer-driven group, we’re always looking for sewers of all skill levels. We’re a friendly and fun group who loves sharing our skills and giving back to the community. Love to help out? Please sign up at app.repairathon.com to hear about upcoming events throughout 2018.

Can’t make it? Our friends in Newmarket are hosting a Repair Cafe on January 27. If you’d like to attend or volunteer, more details can be found here.

january 20 repairathon poster

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.

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

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

everybody hard at work

"customer" with Barbara (on the right)

“customer” with Barbara (on the right)

"customers" with Nicole (on the right)

“customers” with Nicole (on the right)

"customer" with Ruth (on the right)

“customer” with Ruth (on the right)

"customers" with Ruth

“customers” with Ruth

doll surgery

doll surgery

"customers" with their doll

“customers” with their doll

IMG_7447

pink glove: fixed!

"customer" with Barbara

“customer” with Barbara

Jenny (on the left) with "customer"

Jenny (on the left) with “customer”

We have a website

It’s about time the Repairathon had a website. Now we do. It’s not too pretty and still needs work, but now when you want to tell somebody about the Repairathon, you can point them to repairathon.com.

For now, at least, this blog will serve to announce events and other major announcements. Coordination for planning will continue to take place on the Facebook group.