thriftcrafts – A recycled lifestyle…

Weaving new from old…

May 14, 2024thriftwizardLeave a comment

Woven mostly during a Dorset Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers workshop with the lovely Riita Sinkonnen-Davies, my “Weaving New from Old” project was woven on a little old Dryad 4-shaft loom, still with metal heddles and tied together with various rather random bits of string.

(Spot the error where one shaft had dropped…)

The fabrics I chose were all old duvet covers, three of them pure cotton but the other two 50/50 polycotton. I wasn’t sure that the rainforest print, with the orange/turquoise/green colours, would work with the dominant pinks & purples of the other fabrics, but in the event, it brought the mix alive. I’d intended to make a simple table runner, something we didn’t have & would use.

Although I warped the loom as I would my knitters loom, by running round the dining table and a tucked-in carver chair, it somehow ended up several inches longer than the 6′ table! So I decided to cut it & use two thirds for the table runner (now about 4′ long) and one third to make a bag; I can always use another bag. The table runner is already in use, although I have yet to back it. Every mealtime I spot another mistake, but I love it anyway. As do the cats, needless to say… On the bag, I have “laced” in the row where one of the shafts had fallen out of play, hence only half of the warps are there; it will get hard use carrying various projects around, and that would form a weak point, so I decided to lace it down in a different colour to the two warp yarns. (I’ve used the same colour (blue) to stitch the handle on.) Once the table runner has a backing, I will probably stitch a pattern quilting-style over the weave to stabilise the other place where this had happened, and a few places where the shuttle had skipped a warp – it’s likely I was nattering, not concentrating!

The bag is lined with some old canvas that I’d rescued, probably originally part of an outdoor cushion cover, thinking just to stitch a tough bag from that. There is, of course, a pocket inside. The handle is finger-woven (or braided?) from the duvet fabrics, ripped in 2″ strips as I would for a twined-weave project. The “fastening” is finger-woven from narrow strips left over from the workshop, and I’ve used an old mother-of-pearl bead from a broken pair of ear-rings, secured by a little ribbon rose found by my sewing machine. These were fastened on with old button thread, even though it’s not the best colour; my aim was to use what I already had rather than buy new, which seemed most appropriate.

I’m very happy with the results, however many blunders I made and however dubious my choice of colours, and can’t wait to tackle more projects – or to find a bigger loom (again) now that we have a little more space…

Poppy & Jingles appreciating my efforts, and wondering if it’s teatime yet…

New challenges!

February 25, 2024February 25, 2024thriftwizardLeave a comment

A couple of days ago, at the recycling warehouse, they had a number of large (2.5m x 1.45m) !KEA pure linen curtains in a mustardy brown colour; I paid 50p each for five of them. Four were pretty much pristine & went straight off the next morning with a re-enactor friend (“A perfect medieval colour! This stuff is about £27 a metre new!”) But the fifth has some biro marks in the centre, which haven’t washed out. So I’m making myself a Japanese-style cross-over apron from it, with BIG pockets, decorated with some shibori I did on a course last year that’s been waiting for the right project.

Needless to say, there’s a reason why I’ve never done anything much with linen before; it’s tricksy stuff. Quite open-woven, with tendency to fray like mad, and it creases in seconds unless starched, which would be a bit OTT for a working apron. (But I know that with use, it softens & drapes like almost no other fabric woven from natural fibres does. And under the right circumstances, it can outlast entire dynasties – see the pleated linen dress/smock in the Petrie Museum.) I was also not sure that I’d really got my head around how the aprons actually work, so I drew up a pattern on brown wrapping paper & made up a rough toile from an old curtain lining that was just hanging around in the sewing room (actually the spare bedroom) waiting for something useful to do. The various “patterns” & instructions garnered from other makers’ blogs & Y0utube do actually work & make sense, it’s just I can’t always “see” things in 3D straight off.

Anyhoo, after idiotically forgetting to cut the “pattern” on the fold, deciding to overlock the edges & accidental centre seam for saftey’s sake and sticking pins into myself several times trying to place the pockets to best effect, I did have a wearable apron. But I wasn’t completely happy with the way that it hangs… partly down to my own shape, but partly because there’s not quite enough “body” to the fabric.

So I thought, should I have lined it? Which would be a considerable faff, making up a lining… hang on, where’s that toile? Needless to say, even adding in a pre-made lining isn’t going to be that easy… put that on hold for now.

Luckily there was plenty of curtain left to cut out another one. I removed the shibori pocket from the first effort & adjusted the “pattern” a bit; made it a little longer & a bit narrower over the shoulders. Then fetched my 505 spray – this is a light spray-on glue, much loved by quilters for stabilising layers while you work – and smoothed the rest of the old curtain lining onto the linen, then cut it out, remembering to cut on the fold this time. I decided to leave the pockets on the first iteration and cut out some more from the left-over layered bits. Hemming the bits just seemed far too much like hard work, so I edged them with some herringbone tape left over from another project. I also stitched a few lines around the neck & straps, to keep the layers reasonably well together, knowing the pockets would sort out the lower half. Some beads & stitches found their way onto the shibori pocket, too.

So, here’s my new work apron:

Which looks better on than hanging, but my assistant is off working on her knitting machine… So now, of course, I need to get that toile stitched into the first iteration, and I’ll have a fine work apron for my second allotment…

Second allotment? Yes, a half-plot has come free on the site just up the road from our home. It’s small but enchanting; it was a flat-dweller’s garden previously. There are some beautiful things there & I’ll try to keep as many of those as I can, although some are too big & hungry to continue grow alongside food plants and others will need to be moved into little areas set aside for pollinators. I’ll struggle to fit everything I want to grow in, BUT it has a wonderful half-greenhouse/half-shed that will allow me to grow far more of the tomatoes & chillis that we love, and it’s only a moment’s walk from our house. The other plot is a good mile away, which means driving if I have things to carry, and a twenty-minute walk each way when I don’t. Not to mention the constant onslaught of very determined agricultural weeds (brambles, blackthorn suckers, nettles, creeping buttercup) and pests (rats & rabbits, mostly) from the field boundary & ditch along the long edge. Also not mentioning my raspberries, which have gone feral & spread like a (very tasty) plague… So although I will miss that space, and have some crops in the ground (garlic, onions, beans) & perennial plants over there that I will miss, I will gradually wind that one down & eventually hand it over to someone with more grit!

New challenge!

Although I have yet to sign the lease & pay the rent, some of that rosemary will be flavouring our dinner tonight…

2024 – What will it bring?

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023thriftwizardLeave a comment

So, we’ve reached the turning of the year once more. 2023 was an odd one for us… I do feel we’re on the cusp of great changes that have been brewing for a long time, but are not quite there yet. (Possibly not unrelated to the number of inhabitants of this house steadily falling into the normal range?!) Hoping for a wonder-filled, marvellous & brilliant year, for us and for all my family & friends, and for all of you out there too!

There were some wonderful things to celebrate, such as DS1 marrying his lovely fiancée, but towards the end of the year we lost the use of both of our vehicles at the same time; my beloved van had developed an intractable fault which would have cost me the best part of £1K to get sorted. I’d already faced the fact that I needed a vehicle that did considerably more MPG with my 97 y.o. mother sliding gracefully downhill 42 miles away, so it was sold on. Simultaneously, my Other Half’s 16 y.o. Citroen suddenly “died” because of little rusty shreds mangling the gearbox, having just cost us £500 in new tyres and £400+ in EGR valve replacement. The secondhand car market has evidently gone insane, apparently because of supply chain difficulties, and finding a suitable, affordable replacement took weeks because everyone else was also looking for a vehicle that’s adaptable, economical to run and has a big boot, just like us! Cars were being sold online within hours of being listed, long before we could go to see & test-drive them. Can’t help feeling that people are prepared to take an awful lot on trust now…

We were lucky enough to have the use of DD1’s car as she & her partner are off travelling in South & Central America for a couple of months; it would have been an even more expensive nightmare otherwise as we’d have been limited to the local garages, in a very prosperous area where 10K might buy you a 10 y.o. little runabout. We also discovered that at 65, the “finance” offers are no longer as easily-available as they previously were, despite the fact we’re still working, fit & healthy. But we did find a reasonably-priced, reasonably economical vehicle with a reasonably big boot in the end.

At the same time, we found that the back had essentially fallen off one of the two sheds that I’d been keeping some of my less-constantly-relevant stock (and a few other items, like DD1’s 8-shaft sample loom that’s not in use but hasn’t sold) in. Rain and leaves had been pouring in through the gap, for weeks if not months. Quite a lot of stuff had to go straight to the tip, but I was able to rescue some of it. I would normally have taken most of that to the Scrapstore, but I had no transport, and they have had to close until mid-January anyway because of a problem with their building. So I offered it on Freegle straight away, and most of it was collected very quickly, but a few of the better bits have added to the chaos in my sewing room.

The last few weeks I’ve been making coiled-rope baskets, using up scraps & following YouTube tutorials. They are very easy, given a sewing machine with a decent zig-zag, some cotton washing line and lots of scraps, which I certainly do have, and the process is strangely addictive! They make great presents & look good enough that I might even be able to sell a few. It’s not doing much to reduce the nightmare muddle of my sewing room, though. I’ve finally realised that I need to get rid of the day-bed in there, which takes up a whole lot of space that could be far better used for a cutting table/space to keep the overlocker out on. A sturdy old gate-leg table would work very well & I suspect I can find one of those locally for pennies, as it doesn’t need to look good, just be functional; I hope I’ll be able to fit one into my “new” car! And find a good home for the day-bed, which has been used just once in the years that we’ve owned it.

One of Pembrokeshire’s many beautiful beaches…

DD2 & I enjoyed a week in May and another in October house- & pet-sitting for our eldest in glorious Pembrokeshire, before the van started to play up so badly. The charity shops of Haverfordwest proved to be a very fertile hunting ground for materials for “upcycling” - which reminds me, I have far too many projects lined up already; did I mention the mess? – though I did make a couple of rugs whilst there. One in twined-weave (which now lives there) & the other giant-crocheted for a small-but-absorbent mat for our shower room.

It’s not been such a bad year at the allotment – assorted beans especially did well! – or in the garden; preserving & fermenting the results has kept me well busy.

The freezer is still full-to-bursting, even after feeding the hordes over Christmas. So a frugal January is indicated on the grocery front! And one of my main resolutions for this coming year, apart from de-cluttering, and being a little more regular with the blog posts, is to dive further into the marvellous art of fermentation; amongst this year’s successes have been a tasty Salsa Verde, using the tomatillos in the picture above, grown from a packet of “free” seeds from a magazine, and Tepache, a delicious zingy drink made using two 50p pineapples from the market.

Wishing you all all the very best for 2024 – because we’re worth it!

The Great Shirt Project, continued…

September 23, 2022thriftwizard2 Comments

Suddenly I seem to have some time to myself again. I could, maybe even should, spend it catching up with 30-odd years of neglected housework. Or there again, I could do something creative…

Creativity wins hands down! I went down to the recycling warehouse, thinking I quite fancied making a Japanese-style padded jacket out of old shirts, in the spirit of make-do-and-mend (see also my “Great Shirt Project“) to keep me warm around the house this winter, as the heating will only be on for a short time each morning & evening to keep the house from becoming damp, thanks to the enormous rise in fuel costs. I was rootling through the bins full of discarded clothing when a piece of red chintz quite literally bit me; it was an old curtain pelmet, complete with tacks still in place, as my poor scratched hand can testify. Underneath it I found another piece of pelmet, and two cut-off curtain ends, each about 18″/45cm by 6’/180cm. These had clearly been part of beautifully-hand-made and very expensive interlined curtains, probably in the 1970s; the cotton “bump” interlining was exactly what I needed for my jacket padding. But the chintz also spoke to me, and has ended up being the jacket lining & details, such as the cuffs, belt (I know, not in the original!) and pockets.

It wasn’t difficult to make; there’s no tailoring involved. I kind of followed the “Hanten Jacket” pattern from Susan Briscoe’s inspiring The Book Of Boro, but the cotton bump was lightly stitched into the curtain ends & pelmets, so I left it that way and just stitched the pieced-shirt outer onto it. The thread came from my existing stash. Flattering it isn’t, and it’s a bit big for me, but warm it most certainly is & I’ll be very happy to wear it around the place, at the cost of something around £3; 50p each for 5 shirts and another 50p for the curtain bits, and there are still plenty of oddments to use up. Now I know it’s not hard, I’m planning at least one more, from an old linen curtain, a cotton duvet cover for the lining, and a lightweight blanket as padding, which I’d picked up intending to sell on, before I noticed the stained fringe. I could just have cut that off & sold it anyway, but it’ll make great padding that I’d otherwise have to pay for!

The finished article, made entirely from “thrifted” bits for very little money!

Now I’ve started, there are at least 20 more ideas for creative recycling projects jostling for space in my head. Not to mention other simple ways to add to our comfort this winter, with fuel prices through the roof. Though we do now have double-glazing, some of our curtains aren’t lined; now there’s another use for redundant sheets and duvet covers! So the poor neglected house may get a look-in and a spruce-up too. Watch this space…

Sometimes, it just won’t do…

March 18, 2022thriftwizardLeave a comment

Well, spot the sometimes-blogger who completely lost her blogging mojo… I don’t know why , I just felt that I didn’t have anything interesting to say. Or, for that matter, do… But having just annoyed myself intensely, please forgive me if I give myself an online talking-to!

So I decided to make a rag rug for our eldest son and his lovely partner, who are about to move into their own first-bought home. I know that they will be choosing their furniture & decor carefully, and of course it’s hard to gauge what might “fit” until you can see how their plans are working out – and if they’re anything like us, things don’t so much go according to the masterplan as just fall into place. They’ll do… I thought I’d just go along with something completely practical, which can be used anywhere – a bathmat, a door mat, a sleeping mat for their adorable dachshund, a boot-liner for the car. There was already a warp on the loom; I’d intended to make a mat for the back seat of my van, but kind of lost my way over winter with that as well. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the warp was made from leftover bits of an old sheet that had been cut into strips for a completely different project, several years ago.

I should have known that a cut warp was never going to be as satisfactory as a torn warp for a twined-weave project; it hadn’t been cut completely straight on the “grain”, so the warp was constantly “shedding” threads, which stick up in the finished weaving. And enough came away as I went along that I became slightly anxious that it wouldn’t be as strong in the middle as it needs to be, to take the ferocious tension. Luckily – it sufficed.

The weft strips were a few bits of my husband’s old, torn jeans, an old, frayed turquoise seersucker tablecloth and two-and-a-half reclaimed duvet covers from the recycling warehouse. Total expenditure, £2; 50p each for the 4 bought items, with half of one duvet cover and a few strips left over.

So they picked up the keys today. And I really wanted there to be a parcel for them on the doorstep, so I carried on “over, under, twist!”-ing ’til late at night on Tuesday. I was aware I’d made a bit of an error at one point, but thought, it’s never going to be completely symmetrical, it’s in the nature of the beast to be a little bit chaotic – it’s a rag-rug, it’ll do. So I carried on.

I came down on Wednesday morning, took one look, and oh my goodness – NO!!! It would NOT do. The error shrieked and glared at me; I knew I’d have to undo half of what I’d done the evening before and put it right. If it was anywhere in my sight, the wrongness would just leap out at me, even though I’m no perfectionist. So I spent a merry couple of hours twisting backwards.

No, no, no, no, no! 4+ rows of turquoise where 3 would be *enough*…7 rows+ to unpick, half-done when pictured.

The moral of this story being – STOP when you’re tired, and start making mistakes! I have known this for many years – go off & do something else, sleep on it, come back to your project when you’re refreshed and not before! But once again, I carried on long past the point where I should have stopped… Despite the setback, I still got it finished and posted in time, and it arrived today – the day they picked up the keys for their own first lovely home. Phew…

Just asking – has anyone else out there struggled to get going with projects lately? In the unforgettable words of a dear friend – are you feeling, like I was, somewhat oomph-lacking?

A stitch in time…

December 5, 2021December 5, 2021thriftwizardLeave a comment

Mending is a thing right now, and that makes me very happy! For a very long time I haven’t wanted to support the fast-fashion industry, partly because of the horrendous level of waste engendered, partly because of the chemicals and processes used, and partly because of their exploitation of desperate workers . Yes, I know, those workers do need to support themselves & their families, but our addiction to cheap “disposable” clothing has forced their employers to push prices, and therefore wages, down to the minimum, and their hours up to the maximum, leading to people becoming economically enslaved & working in dangerous & demeaning situations. There has to be a better way, for all concerned.

I do try to buy well, when I have to buy at all, but I don’t have the kind of money to buy the clothes I’d ethically approve of, and, to be fair, they’re probably not designed for people like me anyway. (What looks good on a 6′ size 6 model drifting through a field of sunlit daisies looks quite silly on a short, round lady of a certain age trudging up a muddy allotment path.) So when I do invest in something I like and that suits me, I want it to last. Especially when I’ve bought it secondhand; chances are I won’t be able to find a replacement easily.

So mending has been part of my way of life for a long time (I grew up in the 60s & 70s, when it was quite mainstream, if not something to be proud of) and I’m beginning to see it not as a chore, but as a creative process. I learnt early in life how to do more-or-less invisible mends, but thanks to those indefatigable engines of creativity, the Japanese, and the public’s growing awareness of our looming environmental predicaments, “visible mends” have caught people’s imaginations lately and have even become saleable. My skills are suddenly in demand, with the added twist that I can start to have some fun with the idea now!

So I thought I’d share the process of retrieving a rather nice polo-necked jumper; not a top-notch “designer” garment, but a respectable make and made from cashmere, a rightly-expensive fibre that I’d struggle to justify buying new for myself. I found this one at the recycling warehouse, for 50p, well-nibbled; one of the main problems with cashmere is that clothes moths simply adore it. (The other is its tendency to shrink & felt if not treated with the utmost respect.) Luckily they’re not good at surviving very low temperatures, so it spent a month in my freezer before being assessed for mending or upcycling; if I’d judged it too hard to mend, it could have become fingerless gloves, or possibly leg-warmers, or any number of smaller, useful items.

There were lots of holes around the hem, and on one cuff. Apart from that, there were very few holes on the body, arms or neck, just a few tiny nibbles. So I machine-stitched around the ribbing (thank you to my friends on the Fashion-on-the-Ration thread on the MSE forums for the idea!) above the worst of the damage, and cut the lower bits away, then stabilised the few mostly-tiny holes left by stitching all round them with cotton, tightening & tying-off. Both cuffs were stitched & cut off, for symmetry’s sake, even though one had been undamaged.

Luckily I had some tiny sample skeins of cashmere in sympathetic colours, so I crocheted round the cut edges (straightforward double-crochet, or single for our American friends, basing each stitch just above the machine-stitched line) in one direction in a lighter blue, then the opposite way in a darker one. The last step was to felt round the edges slightly to bond the different yarns, by dipping them in hot water & soap & rubbing them gently between my fingers for a few minutes. Then it was washed & dried.

I’m going to wear this one myself, mostly underneath other garments, and am perfectly happy that it now has what looks like a little lacy trim!

*Just right for trudging up allotment paths!*

As a “vintage” market trader, I’ve always mended worthwhile items to sell on, as well as for my own use, and have never considered wearing mended clothes to be a sign of moral deficiency. We have to stop shopping ’til we drop & throwing or giving stuff away after a couple of uses. Instead we need to buy carefully & consciously, and take proper care of what we have, wherever it come from. Part of taking care is mending when necessary, visibly or otherwise. Learning to mend could save you lots of money, or make it possible to buy things of a quality that would otherwise be out of reach. It’s a better use of precious time than endless binge-watching TV, and can even be combined with it once it becomes automatic.

*Darned vintage cardi by Susan Duckworth, visibly-patched 5 y.o. Levis & crochet-hemmed Johnstons of Elgin cashmere jumper.*

And when things go beyond the point of mend-abilty – upcycle. Felted jumpers make wonderful cushion covers!

*A favourite jumper, shrunk & felted way past wearable, makes a cosy cushion…*

The Great Shirt Project strikes again…

August 17, 2021August 18, 2021thriftwizard1 Comment

For several years now, I’ve been working on a one-woman challenge: to find as many uses for old shirts as I can! Every quilter knows there’s a whole lot of good, still-useful fabric in a decent gent’s shirt, often in lovely colours and nicely understated patterns, and so many of them just get chucked away when something frays, or a button falls off, or the owner gets larger or just goes off that colour. I’ve been paying 50p for superb quality cotton or linen shirts down at the recycler’s warehouse-shop, chopping them up and using the fabric in little quilts, and weaving the side-seams into bags and rugs, and making hanging “pockets”, needle books, mending kits and laptop covers, to name just a few of the ideas that have occurred to me. A few of the resulting items have even been sold.

Yesterday I experimented with some cuffs; I’ve been steadily selling lavender hearts made from the embroidered bits of old stained table linen, but they are delightfully feminine when all’s said & done. I wanted to make something that a guy would be happy to hang in his wardrobe to make his clothes smell fresh & deter moths, too. So now I’ve invented the Lavender Cuff! Time will tell whether anyone will ever actually buy one, but it’s got to be worth a try…

But the thing that I really, really wanted to make was a hat. It struck me some time ago that the stiffened bits of a formal shirt, i.e. the collars and cuffs, would be ideal for making a hat, if I could just get them joined together somehow. But before I had my big Pfaff machine serviced, all my attempts came to nothing; I broke a number of needles and wrecked several collars trying. It could always have been done by hand, but that might have taken rather a long time, so it didn’t happen.

Anyway, I tried again yesterday, and to my delight & surprise, I succeeded. The machine ran perfectly, I squared the collars & cuffs off to make even joins, and found an elegantly simple pattern to try (pattern & instructions here) and – it worked! I am now the proud possessor of a shirt-collar-and-cuff hat… This one’s a bit big; I made the bigger size because lots of hats feel too tight for me, so there’s another, slightly smaller, version in the making, but I’m actually really rather proud of it and will certainly wear it!

Something I learnt as a child…

July 25, 2021thriftwizardLeave a comment

So, a couple of days ago, I started idly twisting a couple of old cut-off shirt seams round my fingers, and before I knew it I was twining & stitching a tiny basket, which is ideal for keeping odds & ends of thread in… I was ridiculously pleased with myself, although I know perfectly well that in days gone by, or on this day in other places in the world, any child can make these; it’s definitely not rocket science!

*Tiny basket made from cut-off shirt seams…*

But it brought a long-forgotten memory to mind; I was probably about 8, and had made something very similar at school. I trotted home fairly bursting with creative pride, and handed it to my mother. “Very nice, dear,” she said, distracted, as mothers-of-many so often are. “But what did you learn today?”

So, making stuff isn’t learning; that’s what I learnt that day. Learning is words and numbers, facts, and figures. Learning is ideas and abstractions; making stuff is just – child’s play. Something to be put behind us so that we can enter the glorious adult world of using those ideas & abstractions to earn money & buy stuff, playing our rightful part in The Economy. Making stuff, if you really have to, should just be a hobby, involving buying lots of new stuff to make it with, in your “spare” time, or perhaps it should be monetised, if you’re more than competent; you could sell those! But what’s the point in bothering, if you can’t do it cheaper than a oriental wage-slave & churn out enough to supply the high street giants…? Not many of us crafters could support a family on what we could earn, any more then I can feed my family solely on what I can grow on my allotment. Yet somehow we are still driven by something inside to do it anyway.

I know I’m not the only one to be dismayed by how creativity has just fallen out of our educational system; it’s simply not valued in any way by those who make the decisions unless they can see it as a way of gaining a competitive edge in the world. Music, drama & textiles are hanging on by a thread, but very few adults follow through with their interest once they realise they’re not going to be the next superstar or “designer” name. And children only have a basis to explore their potential talents if one of the adults around them happen to be interested in & actually doing such things, and is willing to help that child learn. You won’t do something if you think you might get it wrong or look a bit silly, but especially not if you don’t even know that it can be done.

There are massive commercial pressures to keep people a little bit helpless, a little bit stressed and anxious, because then they’ll keep right on buying stuff, which keeps The Economy ticking over. Also, why put sweat and effort into learning to make something when you could just buy one, or 3D print it? So gradually, our collective competence is dwindling away…

Making or growing stuff, actually manipulating matter with developing skill, applying and combining ideas, and ending up with something genuinely useful and quite possibly beautiful too, is deeply satisfying, even on the level of a tiny basket made from rags. It doesn’t have to win a Turner prize to be worth doing. Why are we allowing future generations to be deprived of this delight?

Fast forward…

July 15, 2021July 15, 2021thriftwizardLeave a comment

… to July, and any day now I’ll be a Grandma! A little quilt has duly been produced:

I even got to use some of my tie-dyed fabric on the back. All the fabric is reclaimed, rightly or wrongly.

They have a night-sky theme going on in the nursery so the shapes & colours were chosen to fit in with that; they look darker in the pictures than they actually are, thanks to the seemingly never-ending gloom in June. It’s not meant to be an heirloom but a totally practical, wash & wear everyday item. There are a few touches that I hope will please the little man; some chenilled seams to intrigue little fingers, and it’s bound with satin ribbon, remembering how much his father loved labels and other smooth textiles as a baby & small child. That and some of the thread – I ran out! – are the only things bought new.

In the meantime, our house has filled up with stuff again; we had a massive last-minute panic to empty my mother’s bungalow. It had sold previously, but the chain collapsed at the last minute and the sale fell through. The estate agents marketing it asked us to leave her stuff there, as it’s easier to sell a home that looks lived in. But as the Stamp Duty Land Tax holiday tottered towards its end, we suddenly got a really good offer for it, provided the sale could go through within a week. Legally it was entirely possible; the new buyer didn’t need a mortgage and the paperwork was all ready to roll, but it was still full of a lifetime’s possessions; you can’t fit that much into her room at the care home, lovely though it is! So some of those possessions have ended up here with us; some will be sold, a few bits used (proper glass lemon squeezies! Oh yes!) but others I will have to make space for until various offspring have homes of their own to house them in. And yes, the lawyers pulled it off and the sale went through a day early.

The weird weather has left me with another space problem; things that should have come out by now over at the allotment are still in the ground, only just starting to go over. So I have several sets of plants ready to go into the ground, but no ground to put them in! And my “first early” potatoes & my maincrops are clearly all going to be ready at the same time. Needless to say, the weeds have galloped away; one minute they were tiny, hardly worth hoeing off, then it rained for weeks and now they are thigh-high. Some serious work called for over there! But some actual potential crops are thriving; I planted Greek Gigantes beans for the first time, and despite the deluge they seem very happy & are racing up their wigwam.

I’m sure there was something serious I wanted to witter on about, but I’ve entirely forgotten what it was, thanks to finding most of a treasure at the recycling warehouse earlier this week. A 1979 Rappard Wee Peggy spinning wheel, originally from New Zealand, but alas, she’s missing her flyer, whorl & bobbins. So that will be a Quest for me over the next few months; I either need to track some “orphan” parts down, or find something that can substitute for them. Without them, sadly she’s just expensive firewood; with them, she’s a beautiful and genuinely useful tool.

So now I’m wondering how to gently tell the house clearance people that sometimes, bizarre-looking bits of wood & metal with odd protrusions, often stashed in baskets of brittle, age-old, moth-eaten fluff, are actually vital parts of something. And remembering the lady who found one merrily chucking parts of a loom into a skip, because he couldn’t work out how this “bookcase” fitted together…

Here we are, nearly the end of May…

May 23, 2021May 23, 2021thriftwizardLeave a comment

…and I’m going flat out in the garden and at the allotment again. It’s still too cold put much out, and now what I have planted out is in danger of drowning, but our little greenhouse is full to bursting of tiny plantlets waiting to gallop into their full potential when conditions allow. There’s plenty of infrastructure work still to do up at the allotment to get ready for them, but I’ve hurt my back so will have to wait a few days more before I can get on top of that. In the meantime I’ve been cooking up an idea for a self-built “tomato-house” in an under-utilised space round the front…

*Seedlings ready to go in. But not into a bog…*

But whenever I’ve wandered over to the allotment to tend the potatoes and brave seedlings that have poked their tiny heads up (Yay! Parsnips! For the first time ever!) I’ve been saddened to walk past several “landscape gardeners”‘ pick-ups parked outside people’s homes, with shredders going full blast and branch after blossom-laden branch being fed into the chippers. Rootballs & whole shrubs chucked onto the lorries, bag after bag of rich topsoil going to the dump & sterile sand being barrowed in, followed by rolls of astro-turf. Massive, expensive plastic-rattan suites & flimsy “gazebos” are being delivered to take up half the outdoor space and blow-up hot-tubs to cover the rest. And the big new “executive” houses going up in the new estates all round our little town have tiny pocket-hanky gardens. It’s left me wondering how most people see gardens these days; do they just want their outdoor spaces to be a place to “be” in, or entertain in? Our local estate agents seem only to see gardens as potential building plots.

I do know that people are very stressed and don’t want to have to bother with “work” in the garden when they finally get home after queueing in traffic for half an hour to get through all the roadworks caused by the new builds. I know that the supermarkets have plenty of fresh produce you can buy for pennies, so why bother to grow your own? I know that to many, wildlife is something that lives “out there” and any living thing that shows up in your space is a pest or potential danger that should be got rid of; toads are slimy, hedgehogs prickly, bees, wasps and anything that looks vaguely like them might sting or bite, birds may poo on your expensive rattan suite, bats get stuck in your expensive hairdo, and so on. But don’t people have any idea what they are missing out on?

*Some non-supermarket produce entertaining me…*

When the sun shines, our little garden is a bit of a sun-trap, and there’s no greater blessing than to doze gently in a chair, listening to the hum of next-door’s bees coming in to drink at the pond and pollinate my crab-apples. We have a small solar-powered fountain, bought for a few pounds in an online sale, to keep the water clear & fresh for the tadpoles that will grow into frogs and toads that will keep the slugs at bay. The antics of the two hedgehogs whose “range” includes our garden amuse us hugely after dark, and we’re privileged to have one of them “nest” regularly in the lesser-visited recesses of the garage. The scent of the pittosporum at dusk in spring, and the roses all day in summer, are a constant delight. And the taste & texture of home-grown produce just beats any samey-same affordable supermarket vegetable hands-down. Ah well, perhaps I just belong in an older & kinder version of the world…

(For UK residents, here’s a link to a petition to Parliament asking for a ban on artificial grass in gardens: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585520)

In other news, I’ve been making-do & mending as usual, and would love to share a little project with you all. Elder daughter had a favourite pillow-sham for many years, one of those nice M&S patchwork ones in pretty shades of blue & pink. I forget where it came from originally, but it’s lived here for at least ten years. However since about Christmas it’s languished at the bottom of the “putting-away” pile of clean washing, and when I looked more closely at it, I realised that it had actually disintegrated past the point of no return. But she couldn’t quite bear to rip it up for rags or just chuck it out.

So the parts that aren’t too worn are now two lavender-stuffed hearts, to scent her wardrobe or pop under her pillow for a good night’s sleep. There are two tiny bits left which might make a pin-cushion. Sometimes you don’t have to harden your heart & chuck out items with fond memories that have “had it” – it’s always worth thinking, what might they be next?