Alice Fujita-Schwartz and Katie Kronemyer with the repaired sweaterThe Southwest Women's Fiber Arts Collective (SWFAC) in collaboration with the Future Forge Makerspace, is offering community members free mending of clothes and teaching how to mend clothes. This free program will be held at the Future Forge located at 307 East College Ave on Saturday, November 16, 2024 from 10 am to 12 noon.

Did you know that 66% of unwanted clothes and textiles wind up in the landfill? Or that less than 15% are recycled and the rest, 19% are burned? Mending Our Ways is a program to help reduce clothing waste by teaching community members how to mend and offering free mending of clothes. On the 16th, community members can bring one item that needs a simple repair like replacing a button or a tear in a shirt or pants.

Mending clothes is one of the methods we can all do to keep good clothing out of our landfill. SWFAC members will be on hand to mend the items, and community members who learn how to mend with the SWFAC members, will receive a small sewing kit.

"The first mending day was a success with community members bringing in items to be repaired and coming in to ask questions about their own sewing projects. It was a really fun day with lots of socializing along with sewing!", states Annette Rubino-Buckley, a mender and SWFAC board member. Katie Kronemyer brought in an old Irish knit sweater that had several holes and a button falling off. Kronemyer exclaimed, "I love that you are offering this service to the community. Now that the sweater is repaired, I love it! Alice is a miracle worker!" SWFAC member Alice Fujita repaired the sweater.

SWFAC is pleased to collaborate with the Future Forge on this program. The Future Forge Makerspace is a place for Making and Learning! Makerspaces are part of what's called the Maker's Movement, which emphasizes hands-on discovery in an increasingly automated world. The textiles room has a modular design based in the reconfigurable space of co-working. There is a variety of tables and chairs, sewing machines, computer assisted embroidery, and silk-screening. A large variety of tools, fabrics and resources are available for member use.

To learn more about The Future Forge Makerspace, and to become a member, please visit thefutureforge.org.

Members of SWFAC make many types of fiber art encompassing the manual manipulation of a variety of fibers by weaving, knitting, crocheting, sewing, quilting, basket making, and paper making to name a few of the techniques.

SWFAC was founded in 2005 and is a local, all volunteer, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to celebrate fiber art and realize its economic potential, nurture and empower both novice and skilled fiber artists, enrich the community by fostering opportunities to experience, learn and earn. Please visit SWFAC's website at www.fiberartscollective.org  to learn more about the organization.