Couple this with my desires to a) save money and b) re-use and recycle and yesterday evening became "Manic Mending Monday". I had started out in another pique at the state of Vee's room - I am increasingly frustrated by the mounds and piles of clothes that litter every surface and often the floor. Even for a member of our often cash-strapped family, Vee has some amazing clothes - stuff I could never have dreamt of when I was 15, jackets, dresses, jeans, tops - all in her own unique style. And all in heaps. I sorted through them, putting things in the washing basket that I had just emptied into the machine, back onto hangers in the wardrobe or into drawers. I even sorted out her drawers into undies, socks, tights, etc.
She had a pile of clothes earmarked to go out, be it to a charity shop, one of those "cash for clothes" places or the rag bag. I went through it and found 2 pairs of jeans with rips in them. I asked her if she would wear them again if I could fix them and she was OK with it. The first pair had a rip right across the leg so I just sewed that up (by hand - I used to have a sewing machine and when I was ill I stupidly gave it away! Boy, do I reget that now.). The other pair had one of those holes that we women often get near the crotch where the fabric has worn through then ripped. I had a pair of my own that needed the same repair so I fixed both using my mother's tried and tested method of sewing a square patch in the inside(I have a pair of my old jeans set aside for that very purpose)then sewing round the edges of the hole on the outside. It felt nice in a way to make that connection back - I know I give my mother a hard time in this blog but one thing she did well was patch trousers - in fact she used to buy patches and sew them onto my brothers' new trousers to save her the job later. I remember many times when she would have is stand on a stool (or as we called it "the pouffe" - can you say that now? Too late!)with new trousers or jeans on inside out as she pinned up the hem - she hated turn-ups and would be tutting at me now as I sit here in my flares with theirlong, frayed hems. We also got a lot of clothes from jumble sales or older cousins which required mending or altering.
Anyway, after the jeans I moved onto cannibalising 2 underwired bras of mine with broken or uncomfortable wires into one servicable one (and kept one underwire for when it happens again!), sewed a torn neck on one of Vee's school cardis and changed the buttons on another from horrendous big brass anchor ones to smaller neat black ones. And do you know what? I enjoyed it - sitting up at the table with my wee sewing kit, listening to Janey Godley's Podcast and then my iPod. I have ones of those wee Ikea 6-drawer boxes with needles (in a pincushion that my youngest brother made at school), threads, thimbles, a stitch-ripper, one of those wee things for threading a needle plus a drawer filled with buttons that came down from my Nana and my mother.
So the shout has gone out - I want Gee and Vee to give me any items they have that are ripped or torn or need a new zip. I'm even looking at darning socks as we go through so many. After I post this, I am going to head to the space under our stairs where we have several bags of clothes for "out" (to one of the aforementioned paces that take clothes - never the bin)to see if there is anything there that can be mended or cannibalised for zips or buttons. It may sound really mumsy and domesticated but, dammit, if it means we can get another wear out of things or can do a wee bit more to recycle, well that can't be so bad x
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Make Do And Mend
I had a funny day yesterday - not as in "funny ha-ha" but funny peculiar, at least for me.
You see, one of the upsides of this current peak of fitness, stamina and activity alongside less pain/ swelling is that I am able to tackle tasks that would normally have been left to one side for an indeterminate time or totally disregarded.
Couple this with my desires to a) save money and b) re-use and recycle and yesterday evening became "Manic Mending Monday". I had started out in another pique at the state of Vee's room - I am increasingly frustrated by the mounds and piles of clothes that litter every surface and often the floor. Even for a member of our often cash-strapped family, Vee has some amazing clothes - stuff I could never have dreamt of when I was 15, jackets, dresses, jeans, tops - all in her own unique style. And all in heaps. I sorted through them, putting things in the washing basket that I had just emptied into the machine, back onto hangers in the wardrobe or into drawers. I even sorted out her drawers into undies, socks, tights, etc.
She had a pile of clothes earmarked to go out, be it to a charity shop, one of those "cash for clothes" places or the rag bag. I went through it and found 2 pairs of jeans with rips in them. I asked her if she would wear them again if I could fix them and she was OK with it. The first pair had a rip right across the leg so I just sewed that up (by hand - I used to have a sewing machine and when I was ill I stupidly gave it away! Boy, do I reget that now.). The other pair had one of those holes that we women often get near the crotch where the fabric has worn through then ripped. I had a pair of my own that needed the same repair so I fixed both using my mother's tried and tested method of sewing a square patch in the inside(I have a pair of my old jeans set aside for that very purpose)then sewing round the edges of the hole on the outside. It felt nice in a way to make that connection back - I know I give my mother a hard time in this blog but one thing she did well was patch trousers - in fact she used to buy patches and sew them onto my brothers' new trousers to save her the job later. I remember many times when she would have is stand on a stool (or as we called it "the pouffe" - can you say that now? Too late!)with new trousers or jeans on inside out as she pinned up the hem - she hated turn-ups and would be tutting at me now as I sit here in my flares with theirlong, frayed hems. We also got a lot of clothes from jumble sales or older cousins which required mending or altering.
Anyway, after the jeans I moved onto cannibalising 2 underwired bras of mine with broken or uncomfortable wires into one servicable one (and kept one underwire for when it happens again!), sewed a torn neck on one of Vee's school cardis and changed the buttons on another from horrendous big brass anchor ones to smaller neat black ones. And do you know what? I enjoyed it - sitting up at the table with my wee sewing kit, listening to Janey Godley's Podcast and then my iPod. I have ones of those wee Ikea 6-drawer boxes with needles (in a pincushion that my youngest brother made at school), threads, thimbles, a stitch-ripper, one of those wee things for threading a needle plus a drawer filled with buttons that came down from my Nana and my mother.
So the shout has gone out - I want Gee and Vee to give me any items they have that are ripped or torn or need a new zip. I'm even looking at darning socks as we go through so many. After I post this, I am going to head to the space under our stairs where we have several bags of clothes for "out" (to one of the aforementioned paces that take clothes - never the bin)to see if there is anything there that can be mended or cannibalised for zips or buttons. It may sound really mumsy and domesticated but, dammit, if it means we can get another wear out of things or can do a wee bit more to recycle, well that can't be so bad x
Couple this with my desires to a) save money and b) re-use and recycle and yesterday evening became "Manic Mending Monday". I had started out in another pique at the state of Vee's room - I am increasingly frustrated by the mounds and piles of clothes that litter every surface and often the floor. Even for a member of our often cash-strapped family, Vee has some amazing clothes - stuff I could never have dreamt of when I was 15, jackets, dresses, jeans, tops - all in her own unique style. And all in heaps. I sorted through them, putting things in the washing basket that I had just emptied into the machine, back onto hangers in the wardrobe or into drawers. I even sorted out her drawers into undies, socks, tights, etc.
She had a pile of clothes earmarked to go out, be it to a charity shop, one of those "cash for clothes" places or the rag bag. I went through it and found 2 pairs of jeans with rips in them. I asked her if she would wear them again if I could fix them and she was OK with it. The first pair had a rip right across the leg so I just sewed that up (by hand - I used to have a sewing machine and when I was ill I stupidly gave it away! Boy, do I reget that now.). The other pair had one of those holes that we women often get near the crotch where the fabric has worn through then ripped. I had a pair of my own that needed the same repair so I fixed both using my mother's tried and tested method of sewing a square patch in the inside(I have a pair of my old jeans set aside for that very purpose)then sewing round the edges of the hole on the outside. It felt nice in a way to make that connection back - I know I give my mother a hard time in this blog but one thing she did well was patch trousers - in fact she used to buy patches and sew them onto my brothers' new trousers to save her the job later. I remember many times when she would have is stand on a stool (or as we called it "the pouffe" - can you say that now? Too late!)with new trousers or jeans on inside out as she pinned up the hem - she hated turn-ups and would be tutting at me now as I sit here in my flares with theirlong, frayed hems. We also got a lot of clothes from jumble sales or older cousins which required mending or altering.
Anyway, after the jeans I moved onto cannibalising 2 underwired bras of mine with broken or uncomfortable wires into one servicable one (and kept one underwire for when it happens again!), sewed a torn neck on one of Vee's school cardis and changed the buttons on another from horrendous big brass anchor ones to smaller neat black ones. And do you know what? I enjoyed it - sitting up at the table with my wee sewing kit, listening to Janey Godley's Podcast and then my iPod. I have ones of those wee Ikea 6-drawer boxes with needles (in a pincushion that my youngest brother made at school), threads, thimbles, a stitch-ripper, one of those wee things for threading a needle plus a drawer filled with buttons that came down from my Nana and my mother.
So the shout has gone out - I want Gee and Vee to give me any items they have that are ripped or torn or need a new zip. I'm even looking at darning socks as we go through so many. After I post this, I am going to head to the space under our stairs where we have several bags of clothes for "out" (to one of the aforementioned paces that take clothes - never the bin)to see if there is anything there that can be mended or cannibalised for zips or buttons. It may sound really mumsy and domesticated but, dammit, if it means we can get another wear out of things or can do a wee bit more to recycle, well that can't be so bad x
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