Turn your mending into art with this gorgeous, upcycled mending yarn made from preloved knitwear, perfect for darning and embroidery. It’s environmentally friendly and a joy to use, and the colour changes add a fun surprise element to your mending.

Lani from Notanotherhat gently unravels high-quality natural-fibre garments and hand dyes the yarn using professional, colourfast, Australian dyes, then winds it onto cards. Due to the handmade, limited-edition nature of these yarns, once each dye lot is gone, it’s gone.

Each card supplies 6-20 metres of yarn, depending on its thickness and fibre type. The yarns I’ve selected for modernmending.com are mostly on the thin side – ideal for darning or embroidering thin, machine-knit garments. Some names include information about yarn thickness but most do not. If you're after a particular thickness for a specific mending project, let me know (either with a note at checkout or email to elf@modernmending.com) and I'll let you know what's available at the moment.

Each card is unique, with slight variations within each dye lot; images shown here are representative only of colour ranges.

Overwhelmed by all the colour choices? Select one or more 'ELF's choice' cards and I’ll pick for you from my collection (including cards not shown here that are literally one-of-a-kind).

Or take a calculated risk with a lucky dip! Each "lucky dip" batch is made from one upcycled garment and dye session. The colours are unpredictable, depending on how Lani waved her magic wand that day, but the thickness and fibre content are consistent, so all cards in a batch will complement each other beautifully.

Mend-it yarn is salvaged and hand-dyed in Melbourne, Australia, from assorted fibres and wound on cardstock. Unless fibre content is specified in the name, mending yarn might be made from wool, alpaca, angora, cashmere, silk and/or nylon blends. 

NOTE: For best results, hand wash mended items separately in cold water with wool wash, minimising agitation, and dry flat out of direct sunlight. Some shades may lose colour in the first couple of washes, due to excess dye that has not been 'exhausted' into the yarn. It will not affect the look of the yarn or fade the colour over time, but may contaminate other items washed with it.

Want to see how it’s done? Modern Mending the book includes 32 pages of darning instructions and 18 pages of hand-stitching instructions, with photographs and illustrated diagrams.

Slow mode

This shop is in slow mode so I can do alllll the things – including running this shop and running after two tiny tots – and enjoy my life. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated.

I'm currently dispatching orders once a week; place your order by 5pm Thursday Melbourne time (AEST) for dispatch by Monday.
(NOTE: I drop off most orders at my local post office on Fridays, but I'm told they don't physically leave the post office and start making their way to you until Monday.)

If you select Express Post at checkout, it will speed up Australia Post's delivery timeframe but won't speed up my process.

After your order has been packed, you will receive an email notification with your Australia Post tracking number, which you can use to check on the delivery status of your order.

Local delivery

Customers in Northcote, Thornbury and nearby suburbs (subject to capacity) can select local delivery at checkout. Local delivery is extra-slow and coincides with my pram-walking/kid-wrangling schedule, up to one week after purchase. ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶