It’s so good to make do and mend

DARNING is a skill I learned at my grandmother’s knee. I can see her now, with the wooden mushroom in the heel of Grandad’s socks as she carefully mended them.

People had to do that in the Fifties. But 55 years later her training hasn’t left me — hence my new project. The (expletive-deleted) moths have attacked some of my favourite jumpers and cardigans. So I have been darning once more, proud of the super-neat mends which give the woollies more life.

I’m in a frugal mood, you see, and don’t want to spend money on clothes. I like my old stuff!

So far, I’ve darned two jumpers and three cardigans. But the ‘making do and mending’ doesn’t stop there. A few months ago, I visited a posh boutique that sold embellished knitwear. You know, velvet and lace trims, fancy buttons, cute elbow patches and so on.

I tried some on, thinking: ‘I can do this.’ So now an old lipstick pink cardigan is trimmed with black lace and classy buttons, and my beloved purple cashmere cardigan (how those moths adored it!) is about to be t ransformed with an embroidered flower over every single munch-hole. I’m also going to trim an old Victorian chair with new braid . . . which IKEA can’t equal. All this turns watching TV into creative time.

As I sewed on Thursday night I was thinking about relationships. Our throwaway society distresses me greatly: furniture, gadgets and human loves seem so easily discarded — swiped away with ease.

What happened to trying to fix things? Continuing to care for them when the gloss has worn off — or the moths of boredom have made holes?

Obviously, you have to want to address a troubled relationship if you go to counselling. You have to want to mend it — and even if sometimes the result of that effort is a positive parting rather than vicious conflict, the whole point is the trying.

Yes, making do and mending is my motto. The finished result can never be the same. But sometimes it can be better.