Sewing Revival: Learn the Art of Mending with Sue Maree

28 February 2025 | Words by Mary-Ann McCall

When I was ten years old, my grandma would sew missing buttons back onto my shirts and work on my oversized high school uniform to fit me properly. It was a form of love.

Unfortunately, I was disinterested in her labours. But now that I’m older, I’ve realised how important those basic sewing skills are, and that I still don’t know any of them. Luckily, there’s a fashion revival in our midst, and it starts with a needle and thread.

At this year’s Paypal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Sue Maree, a sustainability and style expert, hosted a workshop: Sewing Revival: Learn the Art of Mending. Her workshop welcomes anyone who feels the basic skills of sewing are lost and wants to reconnect with their clothes and maybe even their family practices. Reviving the art of sewing shows the importance of self-sufficiency, sustainability, and learning to hold on to our fashions forever.

I have a wardrobe of clothes that don’t fit me. I can’t part from them, and I could easily mend them back into my rotation. There were multiple times when my heart was in the right place; I even bought a sewing machine and watched several YouTube videos to teach me the way forward. But something was amiss—I wasn’t connecting to it. My sewing machine still sits unused at my dining table, with nothing to show.

Yet there are sweet, sentimental memories that come with mending clothes.

Sue hears stories like mine of mothers and grandmothers who act as the family’s designated seamstress. Sewing, in a way, can also help connect to family, and her workshops’ attendees tell many stories about generations past as they learn to sew. Sue says. “I like to inspire people, and [give them] another opportunity …to talk about sewin”

To that end, she plans to show her students garments that have been made (using her grandmother’s vintage patterns from the 1940s-1950s!) from the op shop tablecloths she has collected over the years. Hand cotton embroidery pieces from the early 1900s will also be exhibited, showcasing that you can use old textiles to create garments.

“I think my main motivation is to understand how much waste is in the world with fashion,” Sue says. “Environmentally, there’s just huge value in it. ”A quick fix can save a piece of clothing from landfill, extending the life of favourite pieces. Too often, clothing is being thrown out when a simple button repair, for example, could prevent that. Making it her mission to change consumer behaviour, Sue values clothing as “less about buying and more about what you can do with what you have.”

While exploring the circular fashion industry, this workshop offers a hands-on experience in essential sewing techniques, including hemming garments, crafting a pincushion from reclaimed fabrics and having guidance on sewing buttons onto a calico drawstring bag.

Bringing these skills into my own clothing, I’m keeping track of what I can mend myself. A loose hem or a small tear no longer signals the end of a garment’s life but an opportunity to make it last. Oversized dresses can be cinched for a better fit, and shirt buttons can be mended—just as my grandmother did when I was a child. A sewing revival is a step closer to a more sustainable world that I’m eager for my wardrobe to benefitfrom. It’s not just an extension of life for the garments, it’s fashion that is meant to last forever.