On a bright winter morning in New York, I took the A train to Hoyt–Schermerhorn and walked to the TOAST Brooklyn store to meet Caroline Quiroga and her friend Vicky Farrell, both costume designers and long-time lovers of clothing and craft. Caroline, a TOAST Kindred member, had brought a treasured sweater to discuss how it might be mended.
The Brooklyn shop unfolds through three rooms: a generous front space, a slim doorway through the comfortable middle section with changing rooms, seating, and a kitchen area, and a calm back room flooded with light from tall windows. Here, amongst homewares, rails of clothing, and the permanent mending station of the in-house Repair specialist, Dante, we settled in with Renda from the TOAST team, who also spent the day with us.
When we looked over Caroline’s sweater, I was excited. I love the first encounter with a damaged piece of clothing – you never know what you’re going to learn. Hand-knit in alpaca wool, the sweater features a village scene with mountains on the front and a tessellated pattern on the back. The cuffs, neck, and waistband are knit in a smoother yarn, and there’s no label. Its soft pastel tones surprised Caroline when she first saw it; made in Bolivia, it used colours she hadn’t expected from there.
The sweater belonged to Caroline’s mother, Eva, who was from Bolivia. Though she lived in Los Angeles, Eva always took this sweater with her when visiting home. After her mum passed away in 2020, Caroline started wearing it constantly, drawn to its warmth, its distinctive character, and the memories of her mum that are attached to it. We spent a while taking in the sweater – talking a little about Caroline’s siblings, her mum, wondering about the pattern design; I noticed I was stroking the sweater a lot, drawn to its softness. The longer I looked and felt, the more I noticed – touching it helped spark ideas, as I traced my fingers along its seams and turned it inside out, smoothed it down. Every bump or irregularity told me something about its making.
There were four small holes on the front, two already repaired, and several more on the back and sleeves, likely from moths. We agreed to reconnect once I was back in London to finalise colours and techniques.
From TOAST, we walked to TATTER Blue Library in Gowanus, where founder Jordana Martin had prepared a table of treasures: hand-mended samplers, pamphlets, and textile books. This library houses a remarkable collection of books and examples of stitch, knit, and weave, many drawn from personal archives.
Jordana shared delicate red-and-white and blue-and-white darning samplers; a 1942 government booklet titled The ABC’s of Mending; and two extraordinary handmade books. One unfolded like a scroll, embroidered with red-thread patterns on one side and paper weavings on the other. The second was a bulging brown-paper volume filled with lace samples. It was created by an Armenian woman who taught herself lace-making and used the book to show clients, to help them decide what they would like her to make. The maker’s granddaughter had donated this book; it seems that people trust Jordana with their heirlooms, and I can understand why. She looks after them as if they were her own.
To handle these pieces is a rare privilege. They carry the history of domestic skill and the quiet artistry of women who made and mended at home. The experience feels deeply personal, like being invited into someone’s private world of making.
As we lingered, conversation turned to costume design and research. Vicky recalled visiting the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library, drawers of laminated images once used for creative reference. Connections sparked easily between us. We had to pull ourselves away for lunch.
We walked up Fourth Avenue toward Fort Greene, before settling at Rhodora, a zero-waste restaurant with a calming ambience. In the sunlit back room, framed by lace curtains and aging cacti, we shared small plates, fresh labneh with roasted vegetables, cheeses, hot dogs, and bread with salted butter.
There were six of us: Renda, Caroline, Vicky, Jordana, Ash (who photographed the day), and me. By the end of lunch, it felt as though we’d known one another far longer than a morning. Conversation flowed easily between mending, costume, libraries, and clothing – threads that wove the day together. As Caroline puts it, “It was a truly inspiring, fulfilling, enjoyable day sharing stories about textiles, techniques, process, and connection. I am looking forward to working with Celia on my cherished sweater.”
I have now repaired Caroline’s sweater in London, using Swiss darning to mend holes on the front and covering some marked areas with a duplicate stitch to echo the original colour blocks in the knit. This method involves embroidering a new stitch over an existing one, making it appear as if it were always a part of the fabric. A small act of restoration that carries with it memory, craft, and connection.
Words by Celia Pym.
Photography by Ash Bean.
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