All of a sudden it’s September and the weather has taken a decidedly autumnal feel. My run this morning was illuminated by a beautiful golden light as I was running along the cycle path; it was glorious and is the kind of light that you only get at this time of year. The light was fairly greyish when I left home, so I know the days are getting shorter and I know that it’s autumn thanks to the face full of spider’s web that I got at several points on the path (Keat’s never mentioned that in To Autumn, did he!)

Anyway, I digress. Today’s installment is Second Hand September, an Oxfam initiative designed to raise awareness of the cost of fast fashion and our relentless desire to consume. 11 million items of clothing end up in landfill a week. 11 million items. Every. Single. Week. Take the pledge and sign up to not buy any new clothes for the month of September. The website has loads of facts to help motivate you – one white cotton shirt produces the same amount of emissions as driving 35 miles in a car. And that’s before we consider the pollution caused by the pesticides used in cotton production and from the dyes or bleaches used if you want any colour other than off-white. Oxfam say that the global textile industry produces more greenhouse gases that the international aviation AND shipping combined. Just think what a change we can make buy pledging to buy nothing in September and then being more mindful about the clothes that we buy beyond that.

Which is fab in theory, but how to apply this in the real world? I’ve blogged about the 333 fashion challenge before. The great thing about it is that no one says you have to get rid of the clothes that don’t make that quarter’s cut – just pack them away and reassess next season. This has two advantages 1) next season, you’ll look like you’ve got a whole new wardrobe and 2) you avoid the problem of donating items which, as is often the case with fast fashion, can’t be sold on as they aren’t very well made and then end up in landfill. So give Project 333 a go – believe me, nobody will notice that you are wearing the same 33 items just in different ways: they’re far too busy wondering about what they look like to notice anyone else!

So that’s one approach – but what about when your clothes need repairing? You have a couple of options. If you’re lucky enough to own a sewing machine, you can do loads of stuff yourself, even replacing broken zips. If you don’t have a sewing machine, there are still lots of little jobs that you can do yourself rather than going to an alteration shop. Restitching a fallen hem (or taking up a hem in the first place), sewing on a button or a popper, darning or putting a patch on clothes can all be done quite easily by hand. If you’re not a confident stitcher, you can use wundaweb to iron up a hem, but honestly, it is really straight forward and just takes a little practice – my other half still likes to remind me of the ‘Frankenstitching’ that I did on a pair of his trousers around the hem once. It really wasn’t that bad, I just needed a bit more practice… and it was around the bottom of the leg, so nobody could see it anyway!

Darning sounds horribly complicated, but I mended a triangular tear in a sheet a couple of months ago and it was much more straight forward than I’d thought it would be – I used this video as a guide and it worked brilliantly. As the lady in the video says, I could have made it into something else, but what I really needed was a sheet!

Didn’t quite feel up to darning my socks, though – they’re thin cotton and it was going to take ages to darn the heels, so I just used patches. I cut out a patch of fabric from a too-far-gone to repair sock. The patch was cut slightly bigger than the area I wanted to repair so that I could turn the edges over and hide the raw edges. I stretched the sock over a can of tomatoes because I didn’t have a darning mushroom and was really surprised by how well it worked. I turned a small hem around the edge of the patch and slip stitched it in place. The patches are wearing really well and don’t rub at all.

There are loads of resources on the internet to help with mending – videos are great because they allow you to see and follow along with the actions that you are supposed to take, rather than relying on still images. Having said that, I do like the reprinted Make Do and Mend books that are available as reprints – and some of the ideas for renovating clothes are up to the minute. Body con dress? Open up the side seams of a dress that you want to change. Cut out two panels (one for each side) in a darker fabric and then cut away fabric half the width on the edge of the side seam on the back and front, sew in your panel et voila! A body con style dress from an original idea for a maternity dress (in the original no fabric was cut away and the panel could be removed after the baby was born, allowing the seams to be zone back together. Thrifty or what?!)

The final way to reduce the amount of clothing that you buy is to buy the best quality that you can afford. That doesn’t have to mean the most expensive, I mean the best quality fabric and workmanship on the seams, buttons and so on. It pays to have a really good look at the fabric – if I can hold it up to the light and see the shadow of my hand through it, I won’t buy it because I know that it’s unlikely to last very many washes. If you are buying fewer items, then you’ll be able to invest in higher quality clothes that last much longer – good for your pocket and good for the environment.

So I’ll be taking part in Second Hand September and thinking about whether I really need it before the next time I go to buy clothes (but if I do decide that it is a necessity, I won’t be feeling guilty!). Why don’t you join me and thousands of others in taking part in this year’s Second Hand September?