Long Live Your Wardrobe
3 More Ways To Extend the Life of Your Favorite Garments
By now you’re familiar with the mission of our Community Dye services. Through the Community Indigo Vat, Dye Lot of the Month, and Natural Black Dye Lots we aim to give you a rainbow of options for reviving garments already in your wardrobe.
Today we want to share 3 resources you can explore to uplift your wardrobe & shower your garments with the care they deserve.
1- mending.
MENDING MATTERS by Katrina Rodenbaugh.
Katrina is a beautiful writer and prolific maker & mender. She teachers in person and online workshops and has two fantastic introductory books to mending. This week she offered a free online mending class, so give her a follow and keep your eye out for more resources from this creative powerhouse. Find them at her site linked here.
Some Green Matters lore: Bixa’s first natural dye class was taught by Katrina ( and the rest is history)!
2. Start Small
We love this video that shows a foolproof way of sewing on a button. As some of you know, buttons can sometimes fall off during the dye process. We do what we can to salvage your hardware, but the truth is sometimes they disappear down the drain. It is tragic and we must accept this. That said - sewing on a button is an easy and incredibly handy skill to build. Give it a try - we know you can do it!
3. A Clean Shave
You might be wondering what the heck am I looking at, but we promise you're in for a good time. We were really inspired this week when we saw our friend Michelle from @Capsuleincolor on instagram post about a recent revolutionary purchase: a garment shaver. She purchased this to remove pills off a pair of her favorite knit leggings, and we were inspired by her story! Read her note below:
I had known these (and honestly a bunch of my other wool pieces) needed a shave, but I didn’t put in the minimal effort that it would take to figure out how to do that…
Well, fast forward to last week - I post a video & a little thread pops up in the comments about how my pants need a serious bobble remover (I had never heard this term?!) but I was like “yeah I want to, but I’m afraid!” But the sweet ladies in my comment section assured me I could do it! I guess that’s all the encouragement I needed because…
That night I ordered this fabric shaver! It came in yesterday & this morning I tried it on my beloved custom @nomadsknitwear knit leggings & I am so thrilled! They look new (well, half of them!) here’s your push to get yourself a fabric shaver (I’ll even send you the link to this one so you don’t have to put in the effort if you ask really nicely 😉)
- Michelle ✨💌
Exploring for ourselves, we're delighted to find that fabric shavers ( sometimes called “debobblers”) are affordable gadgets that transform the quality of your knitwear. You can find a Wirecutter roundup of several debobblers (sorry - I love this word) and decide which one is right for you!