‘What I learnt from mending strangers’ clothes’

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I was walking through the streets of San Francisco in 2000 as a young artist when the idea for a sewing project was born. My friend pointed to an empty alleyway and said, “Michael, what would you do there?” A week before, I had driven by a house where someone had thrown out their old sewing machine. It gave me an idea that I could put the treadle sewing machine in the empty…