For Episode #32 of Check Your Thread, I got to talk with textile activist Shams el-Din Rogers. For me, this is the most powerful and thought provoking conversation I’ve had for the podcast to date. Shams shares her thoughts and perspective as an activist, advocate, teacher and campaigner. We get into the sources of Shams’s frustrations, altering patterns of consumption, her experience as a black maker, active allyship, mending as a political act, making for those will limited resources and much more. I started this podcast with the goal of being educated and challenged. This conversation certainly had that impact on me and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Enjoy.

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Find Shams el-Din Rogers on Instagram @shamseldinrogers 

Shams volunteers with Creative Reuse Toronto, learn more about the organisation HERE. 

Learn more about the work of the OR Foundation HERE. 

Image source: OR Foundation 

Listen to an amazing episode (#150) of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast called Dead White Man’s Clothes with Liz Ricketts from the OR Foundation HERE. 

Learn more about the Repair Futures project by Thick Present from the Netherlands HERE. 

Check out the excellent Clothes Horse podcast HERE and on Instagram HERE.

Image source: Clothes Horse podcast

The people’s mending on Instagram HERE have produced a useful-looking booklet to help people keep their clothes in use for longer. Find it HERE.  

Check out the mending work of Noah Hirsch, @yung_curmudgeon on Instagram HERE. He mends damaged clothes that could not be donated to charity and places them in his local food pantry (see below):

Image source: Yung Curmudgeon