Our beautiful recycled life: a patchworking income, green living, dfw adventure!

troglodyte

Morning all,

Sorry have been MIA action, what with worries over the two grumpy old men in my life (one human, one not), half term activities and then a car crash! (totally the other driver's fault, I hasten to add) Never a dull moment.... am starting to feel I would like a few dull moments by now. My poor car (18 years old and 202,000 miles with virtually no problems) is no more, and now I have the problem of trying to find another that I can get along with, predominantly one that doesn't have all the infuriating modern bits and bobs I hate so much (especially electric windows; I hate those with a passion!) Could be a looong search And of course I have a hire car for a limited time and after that, it gets more difficult to get to the places that sell cars to look for one; last time was a real palaver involving trains and bicycles I remember.

Anyway, glad to hear that lots of good things are happening on here. Congrats on the house-move progress KK, not long to go now! Pippi your wombling activities sound very successful although very busy! Keiss I love your sewing projects, they are lovely and the Valentine's 'card' was inspirational! Sorry to people I've forgotten, I didn't mean to ignore you just have a poor short-term memory!

On the subject of sewing machines (if I'm not too late) I have a Frister and Rossman machine that was bought for my 'O' level course. That tells you how old it is, I must have had it almost 30 years. I have made loads of things with it from curtains to ball gowns to leather underwear (!), it does a range of about half a dozen utilitarian stitches (not fancy patterns) including overlocking, blind hemming, stretchy stitch for stretchy fabrics and buttonholes as well as the regular straight/ zig-zag. It has different feet you can use for sewing thick fabrics like leather and for sewing on buttons (although I always do that by hand after machining the button holes), it has retractable feed thingies if you want to do free machine embroidery, and it has the electronic foot control that lets you do one stitch at a time. I would definitely recommend it, although of course the machines may no longer be at all the same - in fact I had to G00gle them to be sure they still exist! My DD has just started learning to use it and we are making dolls' clothes and lavender bags out of excess hankies!

Funnily enough though, I did once (many, many years ago) sew right into my finger (through the nail) on my Mums' old treadle Singer sewing machine, I was trying to sew some thick towels so I suppose that was how my finger got under the foot. Got a row for breaking the needle I remember! But it's unlikely to happen during normal sewing, and anyway it wasn't particularly painful and didn't do any lasting damage; I've had worse puncture wounds from rose bushes!

Gosh sorry to go rambling on so much, got a bit carried away now I finally got here! Hope you are all having a good day!

troglodyte

After all that I forgot something I wanted to ask... I always take reusable bags when I go shopping, keep a couple in the car and a couple in my bag so I don't forget them, but in spite of that we still accumulate some and in fact that is not such a bad thing because we use them as bin-bags, they are the right size for all the bins in our house (including kitchen, bathroom etc). So for those who have no plastic carrier bags, what do you use as bin-bags, do you have to buy plastic bags? Or buy/ make some other kind of disposable bags? Or not use a bag at all? I guess we could do without bags and wash the bins instead when emptying, but then for kitchen and bathroom in particular this could be a bit unpleasant and might use lots of water and possibly bleach etc as well so be less environmentally friendly in the end, so what do others do?

starnac

hi troglodyte nice to see you. with regards to using carrier bags as bin bags - we had this issue at work. We have 2 clients who wear incontinance pads 24hrs a day. we all used to bring in our excess carrier bags to be used for "personal care" times as waste of that kind has to be double bagged for special collection by the council. so it would go in a carrier bag, tied, and put in a bin which had yellow bin bags in it. now the gents have to buy bin bags to do this through no fault of their own. so it's extra expense for them.

I have to admit for the bin in our front room (which only really has sweet/crisp wrappers put in it) then I just empty it into the bin bag I take out of the kitchen bin before tying it and therefore reuse the carrier bag in the front room bin. this obviously wouldn't work in kitchen bin

troglodyte

Thanks Starnac, yes I do that too with the bags, so the 'cleanest' ones get used several times over. I can imagine it is a problem though if you have a lot of less pleasant waste to dispose of.

On the subject of bin-bags, I tried buying 'degradeable' bin-bags once; that was a dead loss as we only need to empty the big bin once every month or 6 weeks, so the bags started to degrade before I had even used them and fell to pieces!

Kittikins

Hi Trog, sorry to read about the car crash, hope everyone is fine and the insurance companies don't play silly wotsits x

Woohoo......ish, I now have a date for my operation, and it's not long away! The week after we move, i.e. the week after next!!! Got even more to organise now...

Pippilongstocking

troglodyte wrote: »

Thanks Starnac, yes I do that too with the bags, so the 'cleanest' ones get used several times over. I can imagine it is a problem though if you have a lot of less pleasant waste to dispose of.

On the subject of bin-bags, I tried buying 'degradeable' bin-bags once; that was a dead loss as we only need to empty the big bin once every month or 6 weeks, so the bags started to degrade before I had even used them and fell to pieces!

We tried them too they were awful!
Our council gives us them for free, real strong bin bags, so I used those.

starnac wrote: »

hi troglodyte nice to see you.
:T
I have to admit for the bin in our front room (which only really has sweet/crisp wrappers put in it) then I just empty it into the bin bag I take out of the kitchen bin before tying it and therefore reuse the carrier bag in the front room bin. this obviously wouldn't work in kitchen bin

We do the same!

troglodyte wrote: »

After all that I forgot something I wanted to ask... I always take reusable bags when I go shopping, keep a couple in the car and a couple in my bag so I don't forget them, but in spite of that we still accumulate some and in fact that is not such a bad thing because we use them as bin-bags, they are the right size for all the bins in our house (including kitchen, bathroom etc). So for those who have no plastic carrier bags, what do you use as bin-bags, do you have to buy plastic bags? Or buy/ make some other kind of disposable bags? Or not use a bag at all? I guess we could do without bags and wash the bins instead when emptying, but then for kitchen and bathroom in particular this could be a bit unpleasant and might use lots of water and possibly bleach etc as well so be less environmentally friendly in the end, so what do others do?

It's tricky isn't it. Never mind how many bags I try and avoid, they appear to magnetically turn up. We use them for bins, collect them for charity shops and, if we run out I used the bin without or lined with an old pillowcase. A trick of my grans, she always lines her bins in the rooms with an old worn pillowcase. It got emptied in the outside bin ( don't think they had bin bags then?) and it got washed and put used again and again........and again. When I was little I thought she was keeping the bins cosy.

:A

Lovely to see you, eek about the car, silly other driver, poor you.

Hope both males in your life are ok now?

Pippilongstocking

Kittikins wrote: »

Hi Trog, sorry to read about the car crash, hope everyone is fine and the insurance companies don't play silly wotsits x

Woohoo......ish, I now have a date for my operation, and it's not long away! The week after we move, i.e. the week after next!!! Got even more to organise now...

Be safe lady x

And don't do too much xxxx

Pippilongstocking

starnac wrote: »

not only does Pippi have Mr F there but apparently he's brought presents!!! I hope they are good ones

hugs to Pippi and wik

Cheers for the hugs xx there were no presents.......:eek:

Pippilongstocking

wik wrote: »

Hi all... Just a quick pop in... things keep happening to keep me from logging on!!!

Pippi my dear lil sis..... Hugs for Tomoz... you know she is watching over us and shall be tutting at all the soppyness!!!!

love you loads xxx

Let her tut sweetie, she's in the next room and can't hear us.

And if she did hear us, we only be put out on the naughty step (again:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:) for talking too much.

:A

Well done on getting by today, with sunshine x

:A

Karmacat

Pippi, there were no presents? He's slipping :eek: please object :rotfl:

Trog, very sorry to hear about the crash, thats dreadful - hope you're okay.

troglodyte wrote: »

So for those who have no plastic carrier bags, what do you use as bin-bags, do you have to buy plastic bags? Or buy/ make some other kind of disposable bags? Or not use a bag at all? I guess we could do without bags and wash the bins instead when emptying, but then for kitchen and bathroom in particular this could be a bit unpleasant and might use lots of water and possibly bleach etc as well so be less environmentally friendly in the end, so what do others do?

troglodyte wrote: »

I tried buying 'degradeable' bin-bags once; that was a dead loss as we only need to empty the big bin once every month or 6 weeks, so the bags started to degrade before I had even used them and fell to pieces!

This is really interesting! I've been wondering about this - since I've been using a shopping trolley my supply of shopping bags has been going down and down. I still get a few here and there - from clothes shops or charity shops, say, but its an issue I'm facing. At the moment, I have two solutions:
- loose veg often have to be packed into a small plastic bag - so I'm using those.
- toilet rolls come in *big* plastic bags - so I'm opening those carefully and using them as bin bags. Not a regular solution tho, I don't go through *that* many toilet rolls :rotfl:

We should get feedback from shaun or turfy about what they do in Eire!

Kittikins wrote: »

Woohoo......ish, I now have a date for my operation, and it's not long away! The week after we move, i.e. the week after next!!! Got even more to organise now...

Wow! Keep going, KK, good luck with it all.