Here mending is not the act of repairing. It is the clothes themselves — the socks, shirts, and torn knees waiting to be sewn. Someone might have a basket of mending beside a chair, and do the mending on a quiet evening. The word is a little old-fashioned now; many people throw worn clothes away or take them to a shop. But in stories and in older households, the mending is that pile of things that still have life in them if someone will stitch them. Though actually, the same spelling is also the doing (she is mending the sock); this entry is the pile, not the action.

待縫補的衣服