Seven Amazing Visible Menders You’ll Wish You Followed Sooner
- Words by Peppermint
Visible mending is a quietly subversive craft. In some ways it is the antithesis of fast fashion – rejecting the notion of clothes as disposable and instead investing time and care into your garments, attempting to preserve them for as long as possible.
Unlike its close friend invisible mending, visible mending celebrates the wear and tear that comes from loving your clothes down to their seams. It draws attention to and celebrates the act of mending. Like the oft-metaphorised Japanese practice of kintsugi, mending broken pottery with gold, visible mending transforms clothes into a unique work of art shaped by your life and love.
The more you think about it, the nicer it gets, and it’s often quite pretty too, so here are some leaders in the visible mending movement to slip into your feed. May their posts entertain, educate and maybe even inspire you to pick up a needle and give it go yourself.
Lily Fulop
Lily Fulop – a designer, illustrator and author of Wear, Repair, Repurpose – runs an Instagram, called @mindful_mending, where she posts her own and a curated range of other peoples’ mends, makes and upcycles. It’s a great resource to see a wide range of clever and cute visible mending techniques and ideas, as well as a good starting point to find other makers’ accounts whose style you vibe with.
Flora Collingwood-Norris
Ethical Scottish knitwear creator Flora Collingwood-Norris champions the art of visible mending as part of her waste reduction philosophy. Her work in the arena has been so popular that she has since published a book, Visible Creative Mending for Knitwear, and teaches mending courses in-person and online. Her Instagram (@visible_create_mending) showcases her serious skillz at saving sweaters. The woman turns darning into a darn art.
Sashiko Story
Keiko and Atsushi, the mother and son team of traditional sashiko artisans behind the Instagram @sashikostory, regularly post pictures of their beautiful, intricate sashiko pieces. Atsushi, the son, speaks candidly about his mixed feelings regarding sashiko’s place in the visible mending movement, stressing that “sashiko is more than a trend”. He objects to people calling any mending “sashiko”, when it is in fact an artform with a specific cultural and historical practice that many people, like himself, have spent their whole life practising. This is an account that will inspire you to think critically as well as stitch thoughtfully.
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Arounna Khounnoraj
Toronto-based maker, teacher and author of Visible Mending and Punch Needle, Arounna Khounnoraj, runs a sumptuous parade of an Instagram page at @bookhou. Think beautiful shots of her assorted projects, makes and mends, along with some tasty tips and tricks sprinkled throughout. Particularly enjoyable are her embroidery videos which are equally educational and enthralling.
Kate Sekules
Kate Sekules is on the more punk rock side of the visible mending spectrum. A longtime proponent of ethical fashion and mending, she is also an author and academic studying a PhD in material culture and design history. She says her goal is to become a literal doctor of mending. Her book, Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto, mixes the history and theory of mending with instructions, tutorials and mendspiration. Her Instagram (@visiblemend) offers a very similar cocktail of content, showing her own uniquely spirited mends.
Katrina Rodabaugh
Katrina Rodabaugh is an artist and writer whose work explores the intersection of fibre arts, slow fashion and sustainability. Her writing has been published in many places, including the prestigious Peppermint (*wink wink*), and she has several books including Make Thrift Mend and Mending Matters. Katrina lives in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Hudson Valley, New York, where she grows flowers, herbs, fruits, vegetables and plants for her natural dyes, as well as tending chickens and honeybees. As well as sharing her brilliant work, her Instagram @katrinarodabaugh provides tantalising glimpses into those #lifestyle goals.
Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald
Meet Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald – the maker, “repair artist” and author of Modern Mending. Her online shop modernmending.com is tragically shut right now, while she takes some well deserved maternity leave, but you can still get your fix via her Instagram: @erinlewisfitzgerald. Come for the #remadebyELF series – in which people send her their beloved if slightly broken clothes and she performs emergency mending to spruce them right back up – and stay for the adorable letterbox dioramas she sets up to celebrate timely events. Too cute!
top image LILY FULOP
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Look, I don’t want to make anyone panic but IT’S DECEMBER!!! If you’re planning to give homemade gifts, you’re going to have to act fast. …
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🌻 The Paddington 🌻
This is a much-loved staple, created for Issue 50 in 2021. We love seeing the #PeppermintPaddingtonTop continually popping up in our feeds!
How stunning is our model Elon MelaninGoddessEfon – she told us it was one of the first times she had been asked to come to a shoot with her natural hair. 🌻
We worked with South African patternmaker Sarah Steenkamp of @FrenchNavyNow_ to create this wardrobe essential – the perfect puff-sleeve blouse. Raglan sleeves make it the ultimate beginner sew, plus the gorgeous back buttons let you add your own personal twist.
Pattern via the link in bio! 🪡
Photos: @KelleySheenan
Fabric: @Spoonflower
Model: MelaninGoddessEfon
“In the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design.”
Crafters have often been at the heart of many protest movements, often serving as a powerful means of political expression. @NeedleAndSkein, a yarn store in Minnesota, are helping to mobilise the craftivists of the world with a ‘Melt The Ice’ knitting pattern created by @Yarn_Cult (with a crochet pattern too), as a way of peaceful protest.
The proceeds from the $5 pattern will go to local immigrant aid organisations – or you can donate without buying the pattern.
Raise those needles, folks – art and craft can change the world. 🧶
Link in bio for the pattern.
Images: @Gather_Fiber @NeedleAndSkein @a2ina2 @KyraGiggles Sandi.204 @WhatTracyMakes AllieKnitsAway Auntabwi2
#MeltTheIce #Craftivism #Knitting #CraftForChange
TWO WEEKS TO GO! 🤩
"The most important shift is moving from volume-led buying to value-led curation – choosing fewer, better products with strong ethics, considered production and meaningful stories. Retailers have real influence here: what you buy signals what you stand for. At Life Instyle, this means using the event to discover and invest in small-scale, planet-considerate brands that align with your values and your customer’s conscience. Consumers don’t need more things; they need better things, and retailers play a key role in selecting, contextualising, and championing why those products matter."
Only two more weeks until @Life_Instyle – Australia`s leading boutique retail trade show. If you own a store, don`t miss this event! Connect with designers, source exquisite – and mindful – products, and see firsthand why this is Australia’s go-to trade show for creatives and retailers alike. And it`s free! ✨️
Life Instyle – Sydney/Eora Country
14-17 February 2026
ICC, Darling Harbour
Photos: @Samsette
#LifeInstyle #SustainableShopping #SustainableShop #RetailTradeEvent
Calling all sewists! 📞
Have you made the Peppermint Waratah Wrap Dress yet? Call *1800 I NEED THIS NOW to get making!
This gorgeous green number was modelled (and made) by the fabulous Lisa of @Tricky.Pockets 🙌🏼
If you need a nudge, @ePrintOnline are offering Peppermint sewists a huge 🌟 30% off ALL A0 printing 🌟 when you purchase the Special Release Waratah Wrap Dress pattern – how generous is that?!
Head to the link in bio now 📞
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8 Things to Know About January 26 - from @ClothingTheGaps:
Before you celebrate, take the time to learn the truth. January 26 is not a day of unity it’s a Day of Mourning and Survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It marks the beginning of invasion, dispossession, and ongoing colonial violence. It’s time for truth-telling, not whitewashed history.
Stand in solidarity. Learn. Reflect. Act.
✊🏽 Blog written by Yorta Yorta woman Taneshia Atkinson.
🔗 Link in bio of @ClothingTheGaps to read the full blog
#ChangeTheDate #InvasionDay #SurvivalDay #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe #ClothingTheGaps
As the world careens towards AI seeping into our feeds, finds and even friend-zones, it`s becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
We just wanted to say that here at Peppermint, we are choosing to not print or publish AI-generated art, photos, words, videos or content.
Merriam-Webster’s human editors chose `slop` as the 2025 Word of the Year – they define it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The problem is, as AI increases in quality, it`s becoming more and more difficult to ascertain what`s real and what`s not.
Let`s be clear here, AI absolutely has its place in science, in climate modelling, in medical breakthroughs, in many places... but not in replacing the work of artists, writers and creatives.
Can we guarantee that everything we publish is AI-free? Honestly, not really. We know we are not using it to create content, but we are also relying on the artists, makers and contributors we work with, as well as our advertisers, to supply imagery, artwork or words created by humans. AI features are also creeping into programs and apps too, making it difficult to navigate. But we will do our best to avoid it and make a stand for the artists and creatives who have had their work stolen and used to train AI machines, and those who are now losing work as they are replaced by this energy-sapping, environment-destroying magic wand.
Could using it help our productivity and bottom line? Sure. And as a small business in a difficult landscape, that`s a hard one to turn down. We know other publishers who use AI to write stories, create recipes, produce photo shoots... but this one is important to us.
`Touch grass` was also a Merriam-Webster Word of the Year. We`ll happily stick with that as a theme, thanks very much. 🌿
