Mending clothes
Complete the summary. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
The summary follows the order of the text. The word you write must be in the text. It must also fit the rules of English for that sentence.
For most of the last century a torn shirt was a job for the household, not for a shop. Thread was cheap, and the skill sat with whoever had the patience. That arrangement collapsed once new clothes became cheaper than the time it took to repair them. The result was a cupboard of garments worn twice and then bagged for disposal. A repair café reverses the arithmetic without pretending to be a factory. Volunteers bring sewing machines. Visitors bring the garment and, importantly, stay for the repair. The point is not speed. The point is that the owner watches the seam and can repeat it. Organisers who tried a drop-off service found that clothes came back mended and the owners learned nothing. The constraint is skill, not goodwill. A hem is a fair first lesson. A jacket zip defeats most beginners and many volunteers, which is why several cafés now keep a small list of professionals for the jobs they will not touch. Those professionals are paid. The café itself usually asks only for a donation. None of this restores the scale of the old household habit. It does put needles back in ordinary rooms, and it treats a repair as a conversation rather than a transaction.