Mending Life:

A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts (and Patching to Practice Sustainable Fashion and Fix the Clothes You Love) 

by Nina and Sonya Montenegro

Mending Life is a beautifully illustrated, practical tool kit for repairing the clothes and belongings we love. It is also an exploration of how mending can be a gentle healing practice in our daily lives and a powerful act of restoration, both for our clothes and our relationship to the world. Mending Life encourages us to cherish our things by repairing them rather than discarding them by rediscovering the intimate connection and preciousness, so integral to our well-being as humans. This handbook is for beginners but also offers more advanced techniques to those with some experience in mending.

You'll learn basic techniques such as patching, but will have options to take it a step further with decorative sashiko stitching; you'll also learn how to darn socks and mend sweaters, as well as things like a tear in a bedsheet or down jacket. And along the way, the authors share heartfelt stories about the powerful act of mending, which strengthens not only the object we are repairing, but ourselves as well.

Sasquatch Books, 2020, softcover, 7.49 x 0.87 x 8.76 inches, 224 pages.

Nina Montenegro (b. 1985) is a Chilean-American visual artist, illustrator, and designer. Montenegro's practice spans multiple disciplines to advocate for an ecologically viable and socially just future. Her work has been featured in Orion, Art in America, The Guardian, and Grist, and has been printed and distributed by publications worldwide. She is co-founder and co-creative director of the design studio The Far Woods, with her sister Sonya.

Sonya Montenegro was born in the Chicago area. Although she'll always hold a special place in her heart for the buzzing industrial humanity of the Big City, her recent path has meandered further and further into the rural, and thus is especially interested in beekeeping, gardening, and spending time with animals big and small. She now lives in Portland, OR, and runs an art house collaboration called The Far Woods with her sister, Nina. Most of her work is pen and ink, gouache, collage, and textiles. She has always loved to sew and is especially drawn to intuitive quilting.