recycling

A little lament for The Ottoman Of Doom…

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Last week younger daughter suddenly took it into her head to “tidy” her room. At 17, she still had virtually everything she’s ever owned stuffed into corners, under the bed, and heaped over her exercise bicycle, but something suddenly clicked inside her head & she, like me, realised that you can indeed have too much of good things, and that actually it’s rather nice not to have to scramble precariously around umpteen piles of junk in your own bedroom.

Which explains what I was doing down at the Tip on Tuesday; I took down a car full to the brim of childhood & teenage detritus, most of it completely un-re-usable in any way shape or form. Needless to say, the car didn’t come back empty… sitting in the re-use area was the most relentlessly cheery & twee piece of furniture I have ever seen;  a large ottoman covered in a white plastic quilted-effect fabric dotted with little red & yellow rosebuds, complete with shadow-rosebuds in some kind of silvery-shiny substance. The whole artfully trimmed with gold braid, with brass-effect handles & hinges to finish it off. I took one look at it & knew that this piece of heroic kitsch really, really needed a trip to Boscombe on Saturday… My middle son took one look at it in the boot of the car and panicked mightily, basically saying that if it, or indeed anything remotely resembling it, ever entered our household, he was leaving via the nearest exit! So it acquired the nickname The Ottoman Of Doom, and stayed safely in the boot of the car for the rest of the week.

There were other good things down there too; a nice little 50s-style vanity case, a grubby but promising quilt and an interesting modern original acrylic-on-board painting, which gently suggests sailboats in what looks very much like a bluey-purple Aegean sunset. The vanity case also went down to Boscombe with us and sold within minutes of the market opening, for the same price that I’d paid for all four items. The painting is now adorning younger daughter’s suddenly sophisticated & miraculously-coordinated  bedroom, and the quilt washed up a treat and has been “spoken for” by elder daughter. And the Ottoman Of Doom? It sold towards the end of the market; I didn’t price it very high, for the same reason that although a treadle sewing machine is the best of both worlds and the ultimate stitching experience, I can’t expect to get very much money for them; most people just don’t have the room for such large items, no matter how useful. A lot of people stopped  to coo with delight over the ottoman, but then worked out that they didn’t have any way of transporting it, never mind anywhere to put it; luckily it found its new owner at last.

Although ottomans are very useful on the stall, and indeed I have one in the shed that I’ve had for months, full of vintage curtains, that just needs to be unloaded from the car, wheeled down to our pitch & opened to display our wares perfectly effectively, I was glad I didn’t have to bring the big one home again as I haven’t a clue where I would have stashed it! But I do kind of regret not having taken a photo of it; I wonder if such a determinedly-cheerful & outrageously OTT piece of furniture will ever come my way again?

So you’ll have to make do with a pic of one of my latest efforts instead; last autumn a collection of random handmade needle-rolls (complete with vintage cottons) sold well on my stall, mostly snapped up for thoughtful Christmas presents for fellow-stitchers, so this year I’m making some myself from some iconic 1970s curtain fabric. I’m also planning to do some crochet-hook & knitting needle rolls from the same fabric (previously 5 pelmets) and other vintage leftovers. And there’ll be some new ear-rings from elder daughter, now trading herself under the name “Pippin Run Wild” and all the usual indispensable Vintage Craft Stuff – I’m looking forward to November’s Boscombe Vintage Market already! I wonder what other whacky & wonderful treasures will come my way before then?

Needle rolls from 70s pelmets

The final curtain!

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Sorry, but I’m not actually going to shut up yet… really it’s now the final curtains,  the last one from the Laura Ashley set, lengthened with the strip cut from the conservatory ones & made into a pair for the front door. It all looks rather posh now! I’m amazed how quickly it all happened; it’s almost as if they wanted to be used rather than being sent off for ragging, because despite the sheer weight of the fabric and the fact that half the time I was finger-pressing rather than doing a proper job with the iron, somehow I hardly put a stitch wrong & my quick-unpick was only used to remove the header tape, which was then re-used. So now I have three pairs of matching warm, lined curtains, which kind of fit nicely in a house this age & size, for the princely sum of £3.50 – one of the 50p curtains poles was not needed so went off with a friend, but I had to buy a few more pin-hooks to hang the last set as the rings on that pole are metal. One reason why the old curtains looked so tatty was probably that one of them only had two pin-hooks left; the rest of the rings were attached with a motley selection of safety pins!

I have a feeling it’ll take me a while to get round to doing the cushions, though – there are other projects crying out to be done, and I need to find, and I do mean find , some suitably eclectic fabrics to patch them with!

Startled but rather pleased…

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A few weeks back I picked up a big, heavy bag of what I assumed were vintage curtains as part of a job-lot that I paid £10 for. I have since revamped & sold on the main item from the job lot at a profit; not a magnificent one when you consider the time & expertise that I put into it, but still worthwhile. So anything else I can either sell on, or use myself, from that job lot, is pure gain.

I’d bunged the bag of fabric into the porch whilst I finished updating DS3’s bedroom. Vintage curtains do sell on my stall, albeit not for very much; ’tis all grist to the mill, though, as my mother would say. I used to take the header tapes off them & sell them on as lengths of fabric, but so many people told me that they were going to make it into curtains (again) that I decided it was easier just to leave them be & let the buyers cut them up if they want to. Anyway, yesterday I hauled the bag out to investigate further…

You could have knocked me down with a feather; it contained two large pairs of very-acceptable cream & terracotta cabbage-rose Laura Ashley linen/cotton curtains, complete with tie-backs & pelmets. They show no signs of ever having been used as the fabric is still crisp & there are no fingermarks, dust or fading; there are a few plastic track hooks, but I suspect that they’re far too heavy to hang from a plastic track in daily use; the big pair are well over 3m wide each at the hems & both pairs are 230cm long. So possibly they came from a show-house & weren’t liked, or someone tried to hang them from a track that wasn’t strong enough & they were swiftly replaced by something lighter? It’s not a current pattern, but the closest I could find on their website (Baroque Raspberry) in the larger size, lined, with tie-backs, would cost £990 a pair!

It just so happened that I had recently bought fabric to make new living room curtains; I made some about 8 years ago & decided I hated the pattern about 7½ years ago, so it was high time to replace them. But I wasn’t totally sure about the new fabric, although I’d paid £9.90 a metre for it; the night before last I actually dreamt I had made it (with some other scraps) into some curtains & blinds for the kitchen, which completely changed the look & feel of the kitchen in a positive way, making it feel much less of a left-behind 80s “farmhouse” style & more of a deliberately-retro country kitchen. So that fabric isn’t going to go to waste, because the Laura Ashley curtains are perfect for the living room windows & the conservatory doors; it would be very hard to find anything to suit the space better. I have a feeling there’s enough there to do the front door, as well, if I halve the big ones widthways; they’d cover both gaps more than comfortably. As our ceilings are quite low for an old house, the pelmets would be de trop so they’ll be deconstructed & turned into cushion covers, which will take a bit of jiggery-pokery or possibly patchworking skills. The only money I’m going to have to spend is on acquiring some new curtain rings, which isn’t going to break the bank. Needless to say, I will check that my favourite suppliers down at the Tip don’t have any first!

So although I’m trying to be very strict with myself about bringing unnecessary items into the house, sometimes, just sometimes, my magpie instincts do work in our favour.

Edited to add: needless to say my favourite suppliers did indeed have exactly what I needed, and one of the big curtains has now been split into two, shortened slightly and is gracing the conservatory doors. Pic duly added; door & frame yet to be painted. Total expenditure now £3, £1 for two curtain poles complete with rings & £2 for some metal hooks on the market this morning.

Further thoughts on hoarding…

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…albeit mostly aimed at people who would die rather than read this!

A glut of something useful or edible does not constitute a hoard. The slowly-diminishing store of marmalade, crab apple jelly & other preserves in the garage is not a hoard; it was made to use up gluts & it’s there to be eaten & enjoyed as well as given away. It has all been made within the last two years – now eat it, before I’m forced to let this year’s crops rot on the trees & bushes! The fact that it didn’t come from a supermarket or contain 70% sugar does not mean that it’s not fit for human consumption.

Helpfully throwing out things that the helper considers naff isn’t actually helpful at all, especially if, like my kitchen timer, there is only one and it is in constant use. If you don’t like the chicken-ey look of the thing, buy me one that works that we all like. And having more of some things than most people also isn’t hoarding, if they are actually needed & being used, like the contents of my spice rack. I do know that most people do not have 20 different herbs and spices in their kitchen, but I cook 95% of our meals & snacks from scratch and all of those are ingredients in things I prepare & cook regularly. Not one of them is anywhere near out of date.

Sometimes “hoarding” is simply a response to rapidly-changing circumstances. Yes, there are probably too many baking tins in my cupboard, but as the number of people in the household is still subject to dramatic variations in a very short time, I still do need four loaf tins some of the time, and often without notice. However I will concede that we have far too much cutlery; since we no longer have a dishwasher, we no longer need 4 x 7 of everything. But it’s good, well-balanced stainless steel stuff, and we do have space to store it, so I am not planning to throw it out just yet but to Freecycle it when it’s clear that none of you needs it. I am also really, really narked about plastic ice-cream tubs, which are stealing some of the space that the loaf tins could otherwise sensibly be kept in; why can they not be recycled in our area? The answer here is obvious; not to buy ice-cream, but to make it in future, if people think they really need it.

And where do you draw the line between “preparedness” and hoarding? There are two big packs of lentils in my cupboard that have gone out of date; I am still planning to eat them as they’re not that far gone (late 2011) and I won’t replace them until they are nearly empty, but I do believe in keeping some basic stocks in hand in case of unexpected contingencies. In a large household, that means more than in a smaller one; a tray of twenty tins of baked beans isn’t a hoard, it’s just a month’s supply in a household that contains 3 or 4 young men. I also like to buy plenty of storeable food when I see a good deal; I do rotate the stocks as things come in so that the oldest get used up first. But that’s why it takes me an hour to unpack our monthly supermarket shop & there are tins & packets all over the kitchen floor for that hour; if you’re tripping over it, it makes more sense to help me do it properly than to shout at me.

And anyone who recycles my carefully-saved jamjars just as we come into peak preserving season clearly hasn’t learnt the lesson from when their father recycled all my wildly-expensive Le Parfait jars “because they hadn’t been used in weeks…”

Well, I do feel better for getting that off my chest – oh dear, chests – yes, I do need to do something about the two chests of perfectly-good fleece under the stairs…

Edited to add: in case you think I’m backtracking or prevaricating up above, more stuff went out today – another bootload to the Tip, & the boot has now been refilled with things to drop off to a charity shop tomorrow. A big bag of yarn went off to two young friends starting to knit, and some needlework kits flew away on Freecycle. Two items sold, one on Ebay (off to the States!) & one elsewhere. And it’s a free listing weekend on Ebay so I’ve earmarked at least 3 other items to list, one of them large… but there are still several huge piles of stuff to tackle. Slow & steady wins the day…

Hmmm – thoughtful…

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I am in thoughtful mode today…

This morning I read a very moving thread on a forum I frequent. It was started by the daughter of a hoarder, who has clearly descended into other kinds of mental health mayhem, and has resisted all attempts to help her sort through her belongings, sometimes with violence. She is facing eviction from her home, such is the level of mess, but is still quite clearly in denial and turning on anyone, including her own daughter, who tries to help her.

Thing is, I know I could so easily turn out like that… but seeing what an awful toll it has taken on her family, I know I really, really need to sort my life out now, before it gets any worse, & make amends to those who’ve lived all their lives with my inability to sort the wheat from the chaff and deal with it appropriately.

Obviously, I have just emptied the contents of a 400 square foot workshop, and half of the contents of my mother’s loft, into our home, and it’s currently quite overwhelmingly cluttered & messy. But I looked at some of the piles of debris this morning & realised that they are not recent; they’ve been there for a long time, and it’s been cluttered & messy for all of the 20 years we’ve lived here. I don’t want to live in this kind of debilitating muddle, yet I feel quite paralysed when it comes to sorting the mess out… a fair amount of it is genuinely worth more than just throwing into the landfill skip, even if that would be the “healthiest” thing to do for everyone else’s peace of mind. I have just sent one big carload of fabric, yarn & thread off with a charity that takes it out to craft workshops in the third world, and am sorting out another; there may even be a third. I’ve dropped loads of books into the bookbank and will car-boot a shedload more; that’s quite literally, a shedload, a 5’ x 7’ one. Some of the stuff is actually worth a reasonable amount of money, and I have been Ebaying for all I’m worth over the last few weeks, and earmarked other things to go as soon as they’re tarted up a bit. And much of it does have use or value to someone somewhere, even if it isn’t financial; I’ve also been giving stuff away as hard & fast as I can, but am getting discouraged at the number of people who yell, “ME ME ME!” when you Freecycle something, then fail to turn up not once, but several times. I’ve taken some decent stuff to the Tip & just hoped that someone else will take it on, but I’ve seen the guys there have to smash up too many lovely solid-wood, well-made bookcases, sideboards, chairs & tables to have much hope of that; they don’t have room to keep it all, either.

It may be a classic case of projection, but I can’t help feeling that some of my problem is actually the result of living in such a horrendously wasteful society. It actually feels quite wrong to me to let good stuff go to waste like that; to see good craftsmanship & fine materials wantonly destroyed just because it’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. And some of my problem has actually been caused by other people’s good intentions! I opened the door of my workshop for ten minutes to let some fresh air in when I was clearing it out ready for the next tenant, and bless my soul, in that ten minutes two people brought yet more good stuff in for me to use, sell on or otherwise rehome… they too believe it’s just plain wrong to throw away fabric, thread, yarn and tools that are still perfectly good & useful, just not wanted where they are. But that’s how I ended up with such a ghastly cluttered muddle in the workshop area… so MUCH stuff, much of it absolutely lovely, so kindly given, by so many open-hearted people, but that was because they too had amassed too much stuff… and so it goes round & round! I do wonder sometimes whether sending it off to third world countries is actually helping anyone out there, or whether I’m just exporting my problem!

Our economy runs on encouraging people to buy more & more stuff, and throw it “away” the second it’s no longer fashionable, but I suspect that most of us feel at some level that that just isn’t right. But we also feel that we do deserve the odd treat, that of course we are going to use it, or we actually need it, or that we can’t part with things that were given generously to us even though we didn’t want them or ask for them, and so the problem starts to build… For some time now I’ve had a policy of not buying stuff I have no immediate or definite use for, unless I think that I can sell it on quickly, and if I do get something to keep, I have to let something else go – as long as it can be disposed of responsibly – and therein lies the problem; far too many things are “stuck” here. I think I may have to go one step further, and not acquire things until I’ve already cleared the space for them. I also need to streamline the activities I do; if I actually ever want to have the time to actually do some of them, I need not to spend all my time looking after (or even FOR) the stuff I need in order to do them!

I also need to talk to my nearest & dearest, and sort out some kind of present-giving protocol for the future. Seeing my mother wavering over things we’d given her many years ago, that she clearly didn’t actually want or need in her much-smaller new home, was heartbreaking & made me realise that a gift, however well-chosen & well-meant, can become a millstone round the recipient’s neck. It was easy enough to say to her that gifts are a token, that you don’t actually need to keep the thing itself to appreciate the spirit in which it was given, but much harder to come home, see the piles (piles? more like avalanches) of stuff I’ve been given, and apply my own reasoning to the mess I’ve been living in – and subjecting all of my family to.

I think there probably is hope for me; I don’t hang onto real rubbish, or have any trouble letting go of my recycling, though sometimes I simply forget to put it out for collection. But I  don’t always agree with everyone else what consitutes “real” rubbish, and probably never will, and I do have a huge organisational problem caused by not being able to use things, sell them (which I do do, mostly pretty successfully) or move them on to a more appropriate home fast enough. And the more I get nagged, or people make little “helpful” or barbed comments about it, the more resentful I feel and the less I feel motivated to do anything about it, even though I do know they are right and I do need to do something about it. Oddly, I feel threatened & attacked, and quite illogically that it’s as if people are somehow trying to chip away at my identity when they insist I should get rid of things, although I don’t want to think I’m that materialistic, and I too hate the mess! There’s a part of me that feels quite overwhelmed and just wants rid of all of it, but a bigger part that feels quite resentful that everyone seems to see it as all my fault, and solely my problem, when I can’t help seeing it partly as a symptom of a whole society that’s high on consumerism and far too ready to trash things that do still have value.

Anyway, I simply have to stop letting things in for a while, to save what’s left of my sanity and that of my poor long-suffering family; a mere ten years or so should do the trick…

Quick update…

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Just a quick update here: I’m very busy just now, closing down my physical shop. It seems I just don’t have the time to be a shopkeeper! I’m not upset about this; I’ve enjoyed my year there, probably just about broken even, had a lot of fun and learnt a lot, but it became apparent even before Christmas that it really is a 24/7 job, to start up a new business & give it what it needs to get off the ground, and there are too many other, perfectly legitimate, calls on my time. I’d like to have a little time to call my own again!

So I will start posting again in more depth next week; I’m going flat out trying to clear the unit just now, though I don’t have to do this completely as the next tenant is doing much the same, only more so, and taking on some of “my” stuff!

But not quite so flat out that I missed today’s uber-bargain down at the Tip; 29.6m of cotton duck canvas, acres of industrial-strength Velcro, and all sorts of other unwanted-by-someone tentmaking stuff. I might just have to have a go at making my own bell tent now; I might even have some time to do it in…

An apology…

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Sometimes I have to admit I was wrong about something. Naturally, that hardly ever happens. But when it does, I’m quite prepared to apologise & set the record straight. So here goes: I was wrong about food mixer/processors.

For quite some time now I have maintained that they are a giant waste of space & money. The last one I had, a big Magimix, I freecycled a few years ago and haven’t missed at all. As we no longer have a dishwasher (and in fact the components couldn’t be put in a dishwasher anyway) I felt it just transferred the work from one side of the meal to the other; instead of spending half an hour chopping, slicing & mixing before the meal, we spent half an hour trying to wash dried-on food scraps out of the more inaccessible corners of the thing after the meal. Also I couldn’t “feel” the food; my hands give me the best indication of when a dough, pastry or a crumble is ready. You can actually feel the texture change as the ingredients meld into something new. The Magimix speeded all the boring stuff up, but made it impossible to catch that magic moment when it’s ready but not overprocessed.

But last weekend a friend who brought up a big family then went on to run a Bed & Breakfast establishment asked whether I’d like her old Kenwood Chef. “It’s not even in a fit state to Freecycle, but it’d be such a shame just to take it to the Tip,” she warned me. Remembering other good cooks I’ve known who have sworn by these sturdy old workhorses, and that my older daughter & her friend make cupcakes to die for & that would undoubtedly sell like – well, hot cakes – if they ever made enough of them, I said we’d be delighted to try it out. So her husband brought it round at the start of the week. It cleaned up very nicely, but I was too busy to play with it until yesterday. And now, all I can say is a huge thank you to Ruth & Richard; truly a magnificent gift!

Two large loaves of bread, a batch of meringues, a raspberry clafoutis and some scrumptious peanut butter cookies later, I can vouch for the fact that this thing does actually save a lot of time & effort, and does the job really well. It’s a whole lot slower than the Magimix, and that’s an attribute I appreciate now; I have time to judge when things are ready. I think it’s also more thorough, and much easier to wash up. There’s enough capacity to cook-and-freeze, even in a large household situation. If I ever wanted to, there are all sorts of attachments & accoutrements I could buy to add on to it, but I’ll stick to the basic functions for now & see what time & trial & error bring up.

The main drawback that I can see is that it’s really heavy, being mostly metal; luckily I have some workspace free in my new-look utility room that it can live & be used on, because if it had to go back in a cupboard after use, it wouldn’t come out again in a hurry! But although by & large I am getting rid of kitchenware & gadgets that don’t earn the space they take up, I think this one will well & truly justify sacrificing a bit of clear space for.

So there you go! I was absolutely wrong to insist that gadgets hardly ever make life any easier. The right gadget, in the right situation, can indeed make a difference. So for anyone who has a large & hungry  household to cater for, and enough space to house one, I can heartily recommend the Kenwood Chef, even if I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend actually going out & buying one!

Ooooh – nice!

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Bit of luck yesterday – I went down to the Tip with loads of cardboard, polystyrene (aaaargh – horrible stuff!) and wrapping from the utility room revamp. “We’ve got something for you!” Lee greeted me. “Some alpaca, in fact.”
Curious, I trotted over to the covered skip, thinking most likely I’d find a bit of raw fleece from an older animal that someone had meant to use for toy stuffing, perhaps. But no – two big bags of absolutely gorgeous-quality, squishy-soft, white, crimpy, supremely spinnable fluff, labelled “weanling”… the sort of stuff I’d have to hand over at least £30-£40 a bag for, if I were inclined to actually buy any. I love spinning (and wearing) alpaca, but don’t usually feel I can justify spending that much on my hobby – maybe £4 for a little bag once in a while. I spun up a quick sample skein last night and enjoyed it hugely; it almost spins itself. There was also a bag of washed Jacob’s fleece, which I shall give to my neighbour, as I already have 4 bags of it. I have to ask  – who throws these things away? There’s no sign of moths or  mice or anything else that would make me reject it. It may have belonged to someone who isn’t spinning or felting any more, for whatever reason, but how come they couldn’t find anyone to give it to, rather than just dumping it? Not that it matters; luckily the gents were alert & it’s made its way into my stash now. Into the very top, the next-project bit of it, as it happens.

What a lovely find! I’m a very happy bunny. Thanks, gents…

And I’m hardly even going to mention the pheasant – poor little fellow threw himself in front of a car (not ours, I hasten to add) on a country road at the weekend whilst we were helping with the move. We drove one way; the road was clear. We offloaded & drove back again 10 minutes later; there he was, dead as a dodo. He was on a bend & anything much shorter than a human would have been hugely at risk of being squished themselves, trying to drag him away – so who could resist? A large pot of delicious stock & several tasty salads later, I’m very grateful to him…

A week of happy hunting…

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Well, I’ve had a lovely week! A week of hunting down much-needed useful stuff for free or very cheap…

A friend of mine has just escaped from an unfortunate marriage, about which the less said the better. She left literally with a couple of bags of clothes and nothing else. She had found herself an inexpensive flat, which I went to see with her a week ago; it’s over one of the local village halls, and I was amazed & delighted to find that it’s big, quirky & delightful, originally built in 1735, with high ceilings, big south-facing windows with glorious views, and sensibly-sized rooms. So we had just one week to furnish it on a shoestring! I was just one of several bargain-hunters on her behalf, but all that was there to start with was curtains, a cooker & a table.

It’s amazing what you can find when you actually go out looking for it… Needless to say, I already had a fair amount of useful stuff stashed away; rugs, sets of saucepans & casserole dishes, mugs, glasses, plates, knives, kitchen utensils and gadgets that were far too good to let go to landfill. But furniture and beds, bedding, lighting and shelving were all needed too. So I raided my mother’s linen cupboard, and dragged my elder daughter round the car boot sales last weekend, and we returned triumphant with some lovely things, including a really nice chest with rattan drawers, for very little money. Some wonderfully sturdy shelves turned up at the tip, as did some grand-scale very-posh lampshades. Her family found her some free sofas & a computer desk for her to continue her studies at, and other friends have weighed in with more shelving, wardrobes, & a fridge. A cheap but functional second-hand washing machine was sourced via Facebook. I found a quirky standard lamp on Freecycle yesterday evening to fit one of the giant lampshades, and we picked it up on our way to fetch a bed. She picked up the keys yesterday morning, and within a couple of hours it was starting to look like a home; by the time we trotted off home this afternoon, it was looking great!

The beds presented the biggest problem. There are normally lots of beds on offer on our local Freegle/Freecycle groups, but not this week. I found one on Gumtree and we duly went & picked it up, but as we’d just been in a sick teenage smoker’s flat, we didn’t realise until we were halfway home that actually it was very smelly – not nice at all. That one I’m afraid did go to the tip, not before its time. But I found one for her teenage daughter on Ebay and won it with a last-minute bid; that one is a lot better, and then a mattress turned up on Gumtree which was perfectly acceptable for my friend. So a little bit of money wasted there, but luckily not very much, and I’ll know next time to ask some sensible questions before committing to buy something like that – or even travelling to look at one.

I’m amazed how little we have spent overall, and a lot of that was because we only had a week to kit her out; given a month we could probably have done just about everything for free or very nearly so. We were lucky enough to have storage & access to transport, and a few hours free in the evenings & at weekends to hunt & chase stuff up. And how lovely it all looks now it’s in situ… you really, really don’t need to spend a fortune to make a lovely, cosy, welcoming home.

The only problem is, I can’t stop! Now I need someone else to kit out on a tiny budget… 😉

At last…

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I’ve finally thought of a way of using cuffs! On my rare days off, I haunt the charity shops of Dorset, raiding the “Reduced” rails for cotton shirts & pyjamas to turn into patchwork fabric. You can get some very decent fabric, in reasonable quantities, for £1 that way. I’ve worked out a way of slicing them up so that you get the maximum quantity of usable fabric, plus a quantity of “seam yarn” for rag rugs etc., from each garment, depending on how it’s constructed. But I’ve always struggled with how to use the collar & cuffs & generally ended up popping them into my scraps-I-really-can’t-do-anything-with bag. This goes off to a charity shop, where they get paid for rags by weight; every little counts!

But today I cracked it; I found a nice “Next” pink striped needlecord shirt for £1 on Monday, that you’d have to have an incredibly slender & well-sculpted figure to wear. I could see straight away that it’d make several stunning fabric hearts, or possibly needlecases; maybe some of each. As I was cutting it up today, the cuffs fell together onto the tabletop in such a way as to remind me I’d lost my glasses case recently, and suddenly I could see how I could make them into one, very quickly & easily. And 20 minutes later, my glasses had a new home! It even has a useful little pocket on the back, too, that I’m going to make a tiny matching mending kit for. Will post a “how-to” sometime after weekend!

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