I spend a lot of time cruising all the nooks and crannies of the internet for materials, both common and obscure. It’s a disease called ‘material nerdism’. I caught it in art school and I’m looking into a cure. I want to know what they do, why they do what they do, and how they’re going to last over time. Not all methods or materials are created equal, you know? Some time-tested methods have been cast aside for newer and quicker alternatives, and I think we can all agree this is not always for the better.

Anyways…in my continuous surf for beautiful and unique mending practices, I came across a reasonably new one…

Sugru is a really neat silicone-based material developed by a lovely Irish lady, and marketed as a multi-purpose mending substance with TONNES of applications. From fixing up your frayed wires, to patching up common household items like kitchen utensils. I love this, as it seems to address one of the most pressing existential processes in our throw-away culture… what do we do with all our new shiny objects when they start to decay? How do we manage the amount of electronic and plastic waste?

Now, there’s a whole other post to be written on another day, (maybe a less sunny one, cause I would really love to get outside) about reducing the amount of plastic nonsense in our lives, and finding ways to get more sustainability into our day-to-day. But today what this novel new Sugru material got me thinking about is a few of the other sustainably beautiful and pretty cool mending practices that also exist to encourage us to turn decay and impermanence into a feature of our objects, not a bug. You could say these are the spiritual cousins of Kintsugi repair. This is by no means a deep dive, just a quick and cheerful intro to a few good ones…

TSUGITE and DUTCHMAN PATCHES

A friend of mine who is a woodworker once gifted me the most beautiful walnut cutting board. Rich and dark, I couldn’t bring myself to use it for the longest time. But what made it extra special was the natural crack running down the grain of the wood. Instead of treating this as the liabiity that it could potentially be (wood being as mysterious and shifty as it is) he instead made it a feature of the object by inserting the most beautiful butterfly join.

You have maybe seen these before, little bowties of wood crafted to fit perfectly into the surface of the object. Sometimes a wooden table top, sometimes a chair leg. Both practical and quirky, these types of joins which typically use no fixings and no glue, can be used as both a repair, and a primary construction method, as with Tsugite. There is a beautiful book which I have mentioned previously on instagram called The Art of Japanese Joinery which you should check out if you want to know more. Find it here.

SASHIKO or BORO

This method of darning textiles is the most outside of my wheelhouse personally, but its a repair method that seems to go hand-in-hand with kintsugi repair as a practice. Boro and sashiko are both traditional Japanese textile repair techniques, but they differ in their purpose and application. Boro repair originated from necessity, where layers of fabric—often scraps of indigo-dyed cotton—were stitched together to reinforce worn-out clothing, creating a patchwork effect. In contrast, sashiko is a decorative reinforcement stitching method that uses precise, geometric patterns to strengthen fabric while adding beauty. While boro is more about layering and mending through patchwork, sashiko focuses on detailed stitchwork that enhances durability and aesthetics. There’s a great post about sashiko here.

METAL RIVETING

I LOVE riveting. Whatever the context. It provides such character, and a sense that you can see the inner workings of something. How lovely is that? You can find versions of riveting in building architecture, engineering and even leatherwork. It’s actually quite common to see riveting in medieval bookbinding. But my favourite has to be ceramic riveting. Riveted ceramics are a bit hard to find these days, mainly due to the somewhat impractical nature of it. Perhaps not many survive as working objects due to their fragility. I once found a riveted piece of willowware in Camden Passage, and I kick myself to this day for not scooping it up.

Let this be a lesson to you, if you see something at an antique market that gives you ‘the feeling’, do not hesitate.

Anyhow…riveting was historically a common method for repairing broken ceramics before modern adhesives became widely available. This technique, often seen in European and Asian ceramic restoration, involves drilling small holes on either side of a crack or break and inserting metal staples (called rivets or clamps) to hold the pieces together. Pieces of brass, copper or iron were typically used for this process. There are some obvious shortcomings of this method, the most evident of which seems to be rust. If you are using iron, you will know about it in a few years by the rust leaching into your pottery. There are also problems with the repair known to actually potentially make the break worse over time. So there are some good reasons we don’t see a lot of riveting, but I happen to think as a visible repair method, it might just make a comeback.

All of these methods certainly share an ethos of beauty and sustainability with Kintsugi repair. You can find info for our Beginners and Intermediate courses here.

Repair is revolutionary

Imposter syndrome