Franzmagazine

Kate Sekules--Any mend is better than no mend

"...Kate, how come you became a mending expert?

I have mended all my life and was one of the first to be doing visible mending and yet I’m a little uncomfortable with the word ‘expert’ . I see what I do as spreading the word and helping and enthusing rather than being some great and noble teacher. Mending is a humble skill for everyone and anyone, and there are a whole lot of people claiming to be experts lately, not all of them deserving the title!

But I have to say, I am thrilled with your mending skills; does it take a lot of practice to learn this really well?

Thank you! Like anything, practice definitely helps with mending, but I think it’s more important to just start than to aim for perfection. I thought my first visible mends were marvelous but looking back they were pretty terrible – but so what? I am still mending on top of those terrible mends and they get better and better. Layered mends are often best. So what I’m saying is, you will improve fast, and you will be very pleased with yourself...."