This Thunder Bay, Ont. textile pop-up is giving old clothes new life

Thunder Bay residents looking to breathe new life into their well-loved clothing will have a chance to do so this weekend.

The Thunder Bay Repair Café is hosting a textile-focused pop-up event at Intercity Mall on Saturday, Oct. 25. Volunteers will be on site to help mend clothing and textiles. 

“This will be our first series of workshops,” said volunteer Maureen Gustafson, who has been helping with the Repair Café for about a year. “So we don’t know exactly what they’ll look like yet, but we always have the elements of being able to bring in a well-loved textile item. You’re matched with a volunteer, and the volunteer will walk you through step by step how they’re going to mend or repair your item.”

She said that not only do participants get their items repaired, but they also learn skills to fix things themselves in the future through a series of sewing and mending workshops.

“Oftentimes, our volunteers are people who show up at the repair café to have something repaired, and then they realize, oh, I can do this. I have some skills,” Gustafson said. “That’s how I started to volunteer.”

The workshops will include visible mending, darning socks, sewing on buttons and creating your own sewing kit with all materials provided. All sessions are pay-what-you-can.

Founder Nancy Saunders said the Repair Café began in Thunder Bay in 2021, inspired by similar initiatives across the country. 

“We tried starting it in 2020 in February, and then we had to put it on pause for a while,” she said. “Our first event was in June of 2021, and now we do them every two months at the Thunder Bay Public Library.”

While most Repair Café events include a range of items, from toasters to vacuum cleaners, this weekend’s event will focus solely on textiles. Saunders said the idea was inspired by how popular clothing repair has been at past events.

For Gustafson, mending isn’t just practical, it’s meaningful. 

“There’s been a movement toward visible mending over the past couple of years,” she said. “For a lot of folks, we’re really trying to promote the idea that mending and giving textiles a new life is a good thing. And we can make that a creative and kind of joyful process.”

She said some of her mending projects carry personal meaning. 

“I was just mending something last night with a friend,” she said. “It was something of my dad’s who passed away almost two years ago. To be able to still have his items and ensure that they have a longer life is really special to me.”

Saunders said the event also ties into Circular Economy Month, which encourages Canadians to reduce waste. 

“It fits in with that theme of keeping things around for longer, giving them a longer life so they’re not going to the landfill,” she said.