Mending Things

Mending things is a little art, a little science, and a lot about the inclination of the heart. It is the heart which determines what objects are worthy of the attention of repair, and what find their way to the recycling without a second look.
Generally I have a "mending pile" which serves sort of as "death row"...there clothing languishes for months, sometimes years, before its end is finally determined. Other things are carefully and lovingly mended much sooner on, they are my objects of affection.
I learned about mending from Grammy Danley. I never saw her sew anything new, though I'm not sure she didn't dabble in embroidery occasionally, but our long afternoons were often spent mending a variety of treasures. She mended socks...any sock. I still have her darning eggs. She mended silk hosiery, and in my mind's eye I still see a little piece of cardboard with various shades of skin colored silk threads wrapped around it, so that the proper match could be made. I have her enameled green Chinese jar in which she kept recovered buttons.
Her greatest skill was in mending china and porcelain. She had quite a collection, mainly blue and whites, the family heirlooms indistinguishable from orphans of the Christ Church, Winnetka rummage sale. These pretties were lovingly mended, not with museum quality restorations, but with a pretty good eye and a little ingenuity.
I still have a number of these pieces today. One doesn't notice the cracks and the glue first, but when you do you can practically hear an appraiser say out loud "Worthless because of the repair". There is one blue and white ginger jar that is particularly interesting... I inherited from my mother, who in turn inherited it from Grammy, and it was probably in my possession ten years before I noticed that part of the porcelain lip of the jar had broken off and long ago been replaced by a carefully crafted bit of putty.
Currently I have two pairs of blue jeans in their final stages of life...little holes and areas of wear have been patched by swatches of some of my favorite French Provincial fabrics, which only makes me more attached to the jeans. But the fabric is getting so threadbare there will be little patching on the horizon.
Yesterday I went to glue a trivet. Peter had accidentally sent it plunging from the kitchen counter a couple of weeks ago, and I told him not to worry as it was only a little thing I'd picked up on sale at TJ Maxx. He was greatly relieved it wasn't an heirloom. Yet, TJ Maxx or not, I couldn't quite put the broken pieces of this Provence knockoff in the trash, and yesterday looked for glue. All the superglue and all of the household cement in the house were as dry as a bone. I plugged in a hot melt glue gun, which had only limited success with one broken edge on the trivet. So I put the unrepaired pieces away, and found a little broken Portuguese ceramic on the way. This little dish has been mended a dozen times if it has been mended once, but I wouldn't in a million years discard it, even if pieces were missing. And yet I have no idea where I got it, or when.
It is nice when ordinary events bring back memories of loved ones departed, as this little TJ Maxx trivet brought back a flood of memories of my grandmother.