The Mending Kit + Rebel Patch
Fixing kit and 'protecting where we play' with Pledgeball
“If football has a superpower, it’s teamwork, and I think that’s exactly what our planet needs a bit of right now” Gareth Bale.
Last Saturday I teamed up with Lisa from Rebel Patch to run a stall and chat all things repair at Pledgeball’s inaugural Protect Where We Play Cup in Bristol. The event was an invitation for players and fans to come together ‘to protect the places we love and the places we play’.
Bristol-based charity Pledgeball harnesses the passion of UK sports fans, motivating them to make simple, sustainable pledges in support of their team. The fans’ collective action determines the C02 savings of their pledges and thus, where the team sits in the Pledgeball League. Entering this tournament was free to players, providing they made a nature-friendly pledge.
From local grassroots teams to global players, Pledgeball inspires action at every level. Currently top of the UK football league is Northampton Town, with premiership heavy-hitters Man United and Arsenal trailing in their wake in 9th and 10th place respectively. And with legends like Gareth Bale advocating for them, Pledgeball is on the up!
Rebel Patch is another brand after my own heart. Lisa - also co-founder of Slow Fashion Studio which offers repairs, alterations and workshops - set up Rebel Patch to make clothing repair more accessible and enjoyable. She collaborates with local artists and creates patches of their work that can either be ironed or stitched onto garments. We’ve been looking to collaborate for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity.
Lisa and I are both members of Re-Action Collective, a global network of folk committed to keeping clothing and outdoor equipment in circulation through reuse and repair. We jumped at the chance to represent Re-Action and join forces to promote alternatives to binning damaged kit at the local football tournament.
We took along a few examples of our work to show attendees and got our mending kits out to show them how Lisa’s patches could adorn their old kit. They’re perfect for covering an old team logo, branding, sponsor or even the name of a football shirt’s former owner. We want to show players that there are plenty of alternatives to chucking away kit that is damaged or emblazoned with an old sponsor.
Re-Action Collective also sent us some paracord so we could show players how to make zip pulls for their kit. They’re easy to do once you know how, very handy for broken zips and add a splash of colour to an otherwise dull piece of kit.
This week’s repair is one I did at the event on Saturday on my son’s Patagonia shorts. I snapped them up a while ago in a charity shop for the bargain price of £6. However, I hadn’t checked the zips and got home to discover one of them was broken. Once I opened it, it wouldn’t close – one of the teeth was a fraction wobbly and out of place. Luckily, I have a fix for this!
My mending kit for this repair:
Embroidery thread, not stranded
Needle
Snips
How I did this repair:
With a bit of careful tugging, I managed to get the zip closed
Once I’d identified the wobbly teeth, I stitched around the zip teeth beyond them to stop the zip slider reach them when the zip was next opened.
I repeated the stitch a few times for strength and then pulled the thread through to the back before knotting it.
We loved chatting to the players and their families, and were thrilled to discover a few sewing fans among them. People bought patches and asked us for advice. One 12-year-old boy talked about a bag he’d once made out of an old t-shirt. He’d sewn it by hand (which took him ages) and he used it all the time. ‘It’s cool when you make something, you can show it off’.
A woman who came over spotted a sashiko mend I’d done on my husband’s joggers and exclaimed ‘my grandma used to mend like that’. She told us that her grandmother hadn’t passed on her skills. ‘It was at a time when grandparents didn’t sit down with you to teach you’ as back then, children should be seen and not heard.
One of the players explained that his Mum used to make costumes in the West End and they both repair clothes, some that his Mum has had for 30-40 years. ‘I’ve got a sewing machine in my office, I remake clothes...I once turned a hoodie into a cardigan…it’s my side hustle.’
Not everyone we spoke to had got into sewing though. Another player (above) who was on the winning team runs his own clothing brand with a friend. They get the gear manufactured abroad and don’t sew themselves (yet) but he sounded like he might be open to it. We asked a few other players if they repair their clothes and one said it hadn’t occurred to him to do so. He did mention that his football kit hasn’t needed it as it’s so long-lasting. That’s certainly been the case with my kids’ football kits - apart from a few sock holes I’ve hardly had to repair them at all.
So, if football kits are made-to-last, how about we make fewer of them, patch them, mend them when necessary and keep them in use for longer!
What’s coming up this week:
My mending pile: not mending as such but costume prep for my son’s school play
Next week on The Mending Kit: I’ve no idea at this stage. It’s the end of the school year and I have work deadlines…another surprise perhaps?
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