Make Do and Mend

M.E.

Years ago my thrift backfired on me.

Husband's old Y fronts (yes that long ago!) used to be used as a floor cloth.
Mum came to stay and dutifully washed and darned them and put them in his underwear drawer:eek::eek::eek:

I still use old underwear as floorcloths etc BUT I CUT OUT THE CROTCH :o

Barneysmom

spandles wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies - they're great. It is so satisfying to repair/re-use something rather than paying the retailers our hard-earned cash just to buy their over priced replacements.

I'm thinking of starting another thread about 'charity begins at home' as I have been totting up just how much I give away, especially to the school and Church. I have 2 DDs - so it's double the summer and xmas raffle tickets, usually a £5 bottle of wine for a raffle prize, cakes for the cake stall plus money to buy 'tack' at the fairs, double the sponsor money for 'sponsor this that and the other'. Then theres Red Nose Day, Poppy appeals, Children in Need, Xmas Shoe Box appeal etc. I must donate nearly £100 a year!! Would I appear really mean and ungrateful if I didn't give - just for a year or so???

Could you pick a favourite charity and just give to it? people understand when I say I only give to air ambulanece or PDSA, there are so many charities aren't there - it's baffling. I don't give a lot really, but haven't got much anyway.

Instead of throwing away my heavy curtains I have bought new heading tape, me and hubby sat and took the old frayed ones off and put the new ones on. Saved a few pennies!

ZoeGirl_3

Bambywamby wrote: »

Covering scuffed black boots with black permanent marker and superglueing cardboard in the sole where a hole started to appear.

Ohhh, I just went and did this to my son's shoes!! His winter school shoes were looking very scruffy, and I was making do, because we only have 4 more weeks of winter uniform and then next term he is back in sandels and we can get new winter shoes next year when he goes up a size!! But they look much better now with the vivid, I wonder how long it lasts guess I will find out

LameWolf

Barneysmom wrote: »

Could you pick a favourite charity and just give to it? people understand when I say I only give to air ambulanece or PDSA, there are so many charities aren't there - it's baffling. I don't give a lot really, but haven't got much anyway.

Instead of throwing away my heavy curtains I have bought new heading tape, me and hubby sat and took the old frayed ones off and put the new ones on. Saved a few pennies!

I agree with Barneysmom here - there are so very many good causes, and I simply can't give to them all - so I now explain gently that my resources are limited, and I choose to support animal charities as my "specialty".

On the mend & make do front, the last big item we repaired instead of replacing was my computer. A new graphics card was all that was required. £150-odd instead of over £1000 to replace the entire beastie.

plumtreebabe

Can anyone help me - I've got two pairs of jeans the same size make and model (I stick with them as they fit so well, but they are stretch and don't last as long). The old pair are well worn with holes in the knees (crawling around picking up after a four year old!), but the newer pair (six months only) the zip has broken, one of the teeth dropped out and the gap is near the bottom of the zip and I cannot get the puller bit back in. Now, I'd like to put the zip from the old pair into the newer pair, but the way they are put together around the zip is way too thick and solid and complicated for me and I am thinking I need to come to terms with ditching them (turning them into something else of course). any suggestions on how to save them?

Plumtreebabe

Nicoll

wishingonastar wrote: »

i never buy dusters, old odd socks work just as well, especially terry ones. they are also great on a hanger for reaching up for cobwebs or under things. when the rail broke in my wardrobe i used an old broom handle to replace it. works just as well. an old duvet cover i have i use for garden waste to take to the tip, its amazing how much you can fit in one, and its great to stop bits going all over the boot of the car, and i just upend it in the garden waste skip. old tea towels are used as floor cloths. all salvagable socks are darned, and all clothes mended until they fall apart, then usually made into rag rugs. old blankets were sown into the lining of the curtains to keep warmth inside. hope these help someone, i love some of the ideas on here.

What a good idea to sew old blankets into curtains, I shall definately do this before this winter.

Thank you

luxor4t

plumtreebabe wrote: »

Can anyone help me - I've got two pairs of jeans the same size make and model (I stick with them as they fit so well, but they are stretch and don't last as long). The old pair are well worn with holes in the knees (crawling around picking up after a four year old!), but the newer pair (six months only) the zip has broken, one of the teeth dropped out and the gap is near the bottom of the zip and I cannot get the puller bit back in. Now, I'd like to put the zip from the old pair into the newer pair, but the way they are put together around the zip is way too thick and solid and complicated for me and I am thinking I need to come to terms with ditching them (turning them into something else of course). any suggestions on how to save them?

Plumtreebabe

Might be worth pricing up a 'professional' repair ie having a new zip put in by an experienced mender. The local dry cleaners might have a pricelist (ours does repairs) otherwise try Yellow pages etc

Austin_Allegro

I'm not much good at sewing and I don't have a sewing machine (I'm a heterosexual male, that's my excuse) though I do a few repairs here and there, it's amazing what you can achieve with some wundaweb and a pair of pinking shears! Stuff I've done includes:

Cutting up old clothes for oily rags for my bicycle, using pinking shears.

Using old bits of leather (from an old wallet) and glue to repair the lining of some shoes.

Making a pair of curtains from an old worn duvet cover.

Cutting off the 'valance' part of a worn out fitted sheet (using pinking shears) and tacking it to my divan bed as a permanent valance.

Using artists' oil paints to cover up small indelible stains on clothing or furniture/carpets; just mix the paints for a perfect match.

Making a 'colonial' bed head out of an old bamboo blind.

Buying an old table from a boot sale with a ruined top (for £3) and covering it with Fablon in a rosewood pattern.

Sewing up holes in socks - quicker than darning!

Mending frayed jeans hems by turning up enough to conceal the frayed area then patching it with hemming tape.

Buying a copy of 'Make do and Mend' from Amazon - very interesting.

lauren_1

I used washables with my children and when my mil's mum heard she gave us her childrens old terries (youngest being 48) , they were rough beyond belief but fluffed up well after a boil and tumble, make very good tea towels, hand towels, drying cloths, mopping up baby dribble...... we had around 50 in total! so cut up a few in to 4's for dusting and general cleaning, there were a few good ones in there that we used for emergency nappies. They are still white-ish and going strong after 55 years compared to the more modern ones taht i brought frm mothercare which frayed and dropped to bits after a few months.

[Deleted User]

lauren_1 wrote: »

I used washables with my children and when my mil's mum heard she gave us her childrens old terries (youngest being 48) , they were rough beyond belief but fluffed up well after a boil and tumble, make very good tea towels, hand towels, drying cloths, mopping up baby dribble...... we had around 50 in total! so cut up a few in to 4's for dusting and general cleaning, there were a few good ones in there that we used for emergency nappies. They are still white-ish and going strong after 55 years compared to the more modern ones taht i brought frm mothercare which frayed and dropped to bits after a few months.

I too still have terry nappies from when my two DDs were small,(one is 41 & the other 39 now) they are still very soft and I use them to clean my windows, and as dusters as they can be boiled along with other white as opposed to yellow dusters which run like the very devil.They are brilliant and although old I shall keep using them. My DDs think I'm nuts at how I rarely bin anything