Books
Three books on sustainable art for fashion, textiles, and family projects.
I’ve written three books about art, craft, and sustainability: Make Thrift Mend, Mending Matters, and The Paper Playhouse.
These how-to craft books combine step-by-step photo tutorials, original essays, contributions from international artists, photos, and extensive resource lists. While I’ve been writing poems and essays my entire life, these books bring my workshops to your studio, classroom, or kitchen table. They offer support, inspiration, and practical guidance for mending, darning, sewing, stitching, dyeing, and crafting with sustainable design.
My books are available anywhere books are sold both online or in-person.
![MakeThriftMend_Cover_081320[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa1c2a11c875a0cdc382e18/1604527877514-KCHABB770XAXLNVULJ33/MakeThriftMend_Cover_081320%5B1%5D.jpg)
Make Thrift Mend.
A fiber artist’s guide to sustainable fashion through sewing, hand-stitching, plant-dyeing, mending, and darning.
This book offers 20+ step-by-step tutorials including turning a tablecloth into a top; making plant dyes to refresh garments; and using visible mending and darning to repair garments from denim to sweaters.
Grounded in my long-term slow fashion project, Make Thrift Mend, it invites you on a transformative textile journey. Inside you’ll find heartfelt essays, quotes from artists, an extensive resource list, and over 175 color photographs. Published with Abrams in April 2021. Available anywhere books are sold.
Mending Matters.
A guide to visible mending with 22 hand-stitched projects to mend, stitch, patch, and repair your favorite denim and more. This book focuses exclusively on woven garments like linen, cotton, silk, and denim.
Inside you’ll find five original essays, contributor quotes, and over 200 color photographs to support your mending practice.
An instant bestseller, Mending Matters, is now in its eleventh printing with over 60,000+ copies sold and is also available in German. Published by Abrams Books in October 2018. Available anywhere books are sold.
The Paper Playhouse.
My first book, The Paper Playhouse, includes 20+ tutorials for making sustainable art projects for, and with, children. Focused on upcycled paper crafts, the projects are organized into four categories: Paper, books, boxes, and performance & public art.
It’s a great companion to my mending books, bringing the same values of sustainability and reuse into family art projects. These projects inspire play-based crafting from everyday materials, including what’s in your recycling bin.
Also available in French and German editions. Published by Quarry Books in 2015.
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What Readers Are Saying…
“This book (Mending Matters) and Katrina’s workshop have really changed my life.
I know that sounds dramatic, but the aside from the fabulous mending direction and projects, the story in the book about Katrina's journey to slow fashion has completely changed the way I look at my place in my community and the world. It has motivated me to be kind with my wardrobe, to be thoughtful with my cloths and what the greater implications are of all that. It has motivated me to educate myself and those around me about how our consumption affects the world and what I can do to be better.
Thank you Katrina. If you all get a chance to go to one of her retreats, do it! If not, at least buy the book!.”
— Jackie A.“I have been sewing all of my life, and this book (Mending Matters) is a game changer for me.
I love the kindness that pours out from the author to help teach me the importance of caring for my clothing. I learned exactly the right tools needed to be able to mend a favorite pair of jeans. This was a first for me! I’m so pleased with this book. I highly recommend it. Now I want to go buy her other books!.”
—Daryl V.“This book (Make Thrift Mend) is beautiful in every way!
I loved Mending Matters and was so excited to get my hands on this. The photography is beautiful, the content is inspiring and the instructions are well thought out and precise, easy to follow. I love the natural dye section, which even for an experienced natural dyer is super helpful. The quotes from other artists and makers are fantastic too. 100% love everything about this book!”
— Caitlin P.“Katrina's philosophy is masterfully distilled in Make Thrift Mend. She has a gift for making sustainable living into a spiritual practice, while at the same time grounding it in accessible practices. Treading lightly upon the earth does not require a hefty paycheck; anyone can learn how to clothe themselves in alignment with their values with the skills taught in these pages.”
— MEG MCELWEE, Sew Liberated
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