Stealing moments to mend

A quick straw hat fix and a parenting win

It feels like such a cliche to say this but being working Mum of two primary school kids is a juggle. The school admin alone is like a part-time job and with my eldest heading off to secondary school after the Summer, it has shifted up a gear. New forms to fill in, emails to send, clubs to book, schools to visit, costumes to prep, plays to watch and reports to read.

My son had his year 6 show this week and got his year SATS results today. That’s not what I’m here to talk about though. One of the achievements I’m most amazed by, as he reaches the end of his time at primary school and my younger son finishes in the infants, is something that might astound every parent of school-aged kids. My kids have had the same school water bottles for the past 4.5 years!

These metal Frugi bottles have been dropped and dented, scratched and patched, and they have come home almost every day. There have been subs at times, and they’ve had a few breaks from play since I bought them in January 2021, yet here they stand, victorious, if a bit wonky. Proof, if it were needed, that buying things that are made to last really is worth it…as long as they don’t get lost.

It is quite a parenting win, not least because it’s saved us money. I don’t quite know how we’ve achieved this feat. It might be unprecedented.

That was a lengthy intro to establish that life is hectic. Work is busy and I didn’t know how I would have time to do a repair this week. Once again, I managed to squeeze in some mending while watching the football, and I’m sandwiching the writing of this in between a meeting with the head teacher this morning and a work deadline.

I’ve had my Fat Face hat for a few years too and, like my son’s bottles, it has gone the distance. At some point one of the ribbons came off and I decided to keep it as it is now, with the blue and white stripe ribbon. That has now started to come away and if I put my hat on in a hurry, the ribbon rides up the crown and looks ridiculous.

This was a simple fix, which was a good thing considering I was stitching it in front of a tense England vs Argentina match.

My mending kit for this repair:

• Embroidery thread

• Needle

• Pin (to mark the line where the ribbon should sit)

• Snips

How I did this repair:

• Using embroidery thread, I sewed lines of stitching over the white lines on the ribbon to add detail and secure it to the hat.

• The ribbon was still coming adrift so I added a few stitches on the other side of the hat to keep it in place.

Want to read more of my posts about mending hats? You can find it here: hat repairs from The Mending Kit.

What’s coming up this week:

My mending pile: following the school theme, I ought to start thinking about sewing name labels into my son’s new uniform. I’ve bought it all second-hand and some of the garment’s labels have already been written on. I might get my son to help me!

Next week on The Mending Kit: I‘m not near my mending pile and have no headspace to think ahead about this. At the risk of repeating myself, it’ll have to be a surprise.

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