Embroidery: Clothing Repair

When something is broken, we usually fix it. So why not do the same with our clothes? That’s what Visible Mending is all about: mending any unused or damaged items of clothing so that they can stand the test of time, just as our grandmothers did before us. It’s not a new technique; it involves going back to the relationship we previously had with our garments to give them a new life and a fresh new style to go with it! Gabriela Martínez is an expert when it comes to embroidery and textile art, and has made a name for herself in the industry thanks to her project known as Ofelia & Antelmo.

In this course, Gabriela teaches you how to mend and give personality to your clothes, whether they’re ripped or stained, using stitches and patches. She teaches her technique from scratch and guides you through it step-by-step, showing you how to revive the garments that are gathering dust in your wardrobe into unique and special favorites.

Get to know Gabriela, her textile art project Ofelia & Antelmo, and how she started out in the embroidery field. She also shares where she draws inspiration from and her own personal philosophy on creating slow and sustainable textile pieces.

In the second unit, get familiar with the materials and the upcycling techniques that are easy to apply. Gabriela shows you how to use basic embroidery materials to prepare, select, and start mending your clothing. Start practicing by loosening up your hand with pencil and paper, before moving onto embroidery, creating basic patterns that are similar to what you’ll embroider to help visualize the outcome.

Practice with scraps of material and create a stitch sampler that you can later transform into patches. Gabriela guides you through a series of different types of stitches (running stitch, flat stitch, raised stitch, and lattice stitch), so you can create beautifully textured compositions.

Start repairing the garment you chose, applying the stitches to the damaged textile, creating interesting compositions through patches and visible mending techniques. See how to create an internal patch (under the rip), as well as external and camouflage patches. Gabriela mends her own item along with you so that you can observe each step along the way, demonstrating how to incorporate left-over embroidery scraps and showing you a range of options and techniques that you can try out.