Every month (except December) we bring people together* to give the objects we share our world with a second lease of life and to chat and have a cuppa whilst we're at it (*currently online)
We have our work cut out but let’s make 2017 all about restoration and fixing. Our new years resolution is to mend more and buy less. What’s yours?
We will be holding our next repair café on Saturday 28th January from 12-3pm at our regular home FIELD Brighton, FIELD HOUSE, Preston Barracks, Lewes Road, BN2 4GL
Bring along anything that needs sewing, electrical goods, bikes and furniture and our lovely volunteers will try their best to help you fix them.
Happy girls (who made us very happy) went back home with healed wounded teddies. Betty helped them while they watched attentively.
Some glue on those favourite red shoes gave them a new life…
And of course, that awesome onesie! Ready to put on after Shirley got rid of a big hole.
Ernesto came along with a thread bare dressing gown, Shirley did wonders to sew up the large holes.
Sam helped Lucy with her cup and fixed the button on her hat too.
Ruth’s William Morris umbrella was fixed by Michael with garden wire and a makeshift splint.
This will be at the new time of 11am- 2pm
We will be able to help with electrical and electronic goods as well as anything that needs sewing, gluing & darning.
Come along with your broken things!
We will be back at St George’s Church in Kemp Town for a repair café at our usual time of 11am-2pm.
Bring along your broken electrical goods, jewellery and bric-a-brac as well as any clothing or textiles that need mending. We will also have Tom our expert darner on hand to show you how to do some visible or invisible mending on knitwear with holes in.
The Seven Bees Café will be open for business (they do a mean breakfast).
We will post an update on what we got up to at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire soon but in the mean time here is a teaser…
Our July repair café seems so long ago now as we had a break in August.
We are now looking forward to our next event as we are holding a MENDATHON in collaboration with The Restart Project (who fix electronic items – from iphones to laptops) this Saturday (6th September) at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire at the Corn Exchange from 10am-6pm.
We will have our tools & team of volunteers on hand to help you fix your clothing, textiles (including darning), jewellery, furniture & electrical goods. So pop along with your broken things and help us see how many items we can fix in one day.
This is what we got up to in July…
We won’t have Mattia on hand to help with electrical repairs but we may have someone step in to take up the mantle so watch this space for up-dates.
We will however be doing furniture repair for the first time thanks to Ali offering to come along and help out after attending the May repair café. So bring along items that can be carried and we’ll see if we can help fix them.
We will also have bike, clothing and textiles and jewellery repair, with sewing machines available to use and Tom of Holland offering his expertise in darning.
See you there!
Sam (who co-organises Brighton Repair Café) turned her making skills to use, showing Sarah how to replace the disintegrated rubber seal on a coffee maker with a new one.
Fiona of The Lost Mitten Project talked Stacey through how to repair the ladders in a favourite top, suggesting that after darning the holes that she could crochet a motifs to cover them.
Stacey decided on a raindrop shape and Fiona showed her how to create them.
Juan Carlos and Miriam who we met at Brighton’s Green Drinks brought along a lamp that had stopped working.
In a jiffy Mattia had diagnosed that it was a blown fuse and showed the couple how to replace it as they had never been taught how before.
Dan brought back some speakers that he fixed at a previous event and had further problems with. After a chat with Mattia they worked out what needed to be done and Dan used the soldering iron to make the repair.
Ali and his Dad sanded down toy catapults that had a sharp edges which were causing the cord to fray
whilst Hannah and Irenka sewed up tears in their tops.
Sarah also brought an ipod speaker which needed some repairs to the circuit board.
John came along to learn how to do electrical repairs from Mattia and volunteered to be his apprentice at future events.
Kelly replaced the clasp on her bag.
And all the while the talented D White tickled the ivories and Rafa Zabuski strummed along playing a range of classical, covers and original music.
We will have volunteers on hand to help repair electrical goods, bikes, textiles, clothing (including access to sewing machines and a bobble remover) and anything that needs glueing, or a bit of creative fixing.
The Seven Bees Café will be serving Iain’s legendary breakfasts and other refreshments.
We will also have some live acoustic music by musicians from ‘Banned Sauce’ to accompany our mending.
Please spread the word by printing or forwarding the flyer if you can and we will see you there!
We were at St George’s Church where we met Geraldine.
Who needed Sam’s help to fix her handbag…
After unscrewing the clasp
and feeding the material back in the clasp was screwed back together and the repair was complete!
Mattia’s skills were needed by one of our youngest fixers yet
to help fix her toy train.
Mike brought along his broken FreeSat Recorder.
The circuit board was taken out after a bit of persuasion 
to change one of the resistors
and although we couldn’t test it at the time Mike emailed us when he got home to say it was fixed.
Mattia went on to help another chap fix his speakers.
Tom showed us some new darning techniques
and a lovely old darning mushroom with a built-in light (with original battery)!
brought some new faces
who were shown how to darn
and patch
to make links
in order to fix jewellery
We had a visit from a lady who is knitting a map of Brighton
& Dan fashioned a nifty bike basket rack
out of coat hangers!
Brighton Repair Café 
