Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

misstara

I would love to be able to crochet or knit - my gran did show me years ago but its long forgotten. Maybe after I've mastered the sewing machine as other than very simple mending I'm pretty useless on it.

Today I took all the recycling out and tidied the store cupboard in the kitchen so that it is easier to see what I've got next time I do a meal plan.

tooties

I need a note pad which i can entiitle make do, mend and make for all these tips, loom bands as stitch markers thats very clever, i quite like the idea of draw string bags for my linen.

This is such a learning curve for me, thank you all

regards

HOWMUCH

Good evening to all the gang I have bookmarked Attic24 I will be reading in depth, as previously stated crochet is on my to do list this year. I taught myself to knit even before youtube days so why not crochet and the added bonus of youtube and blogs. I've been sewing since I went to night school as a 12 year old some 48 years ago, so I somes as second nature. Nice to be with all like minded people. I attend our local branch of John Lewis for their knitting club once a month. Keep posting everyone loving this thread.

babyblooz

I can second the value of making little draw string bags for organising things. Even teeny tiny little pieces of pretty fabric can be re-used. Your childrens old clothes can be cut up and used, your OH's long sleeved cotton shirts can yield a surprising amount of useful pieces of fabric that can be made into dinky little bags. Just cut along the seams and open up the fabric, you will be amazed how much there is. I always snip off the buttons and keep those as well. I want to make some of those pretty hearts made of buttons and show them off in a wooden frame.

I've made the bags for keeping things separate and contained in my handbag, one has my notebook and a pen and a comb and a tape measure, another one hangs from the knobs on my chest of drawers and I keep bangles and chunky bracelets in there, another slightly larger one has pairs of tights from the cheaper multi-packs stored safely inside (so they don't snag when I take them out of the wooden drawers). They can hang from the hook of a coat hanger and store jewellery that you wear with a particular outfit ... once you get going you just won't stop.

I also snip out the long loops of ribbon that come attached to the shoulders of tops and dresses. I often use them for the drawstrings on the tiny little bags. I thread one through from each opposite end then knot each set of ends and draw them up neatly.

You'll never look a cast off clothing in the same light lol!

cheerfulness4

I don't think I will babyblooz. I was looking at jeans bags on pinterest and there is an absolutely gorgeous one I'd love to do but DH won't hand over his holey pair. :mad:

Pity my DGD is only 1yr or she might have made me a loom bracelet that I could take apart and mark my knitting rows with. :rotfl: As if I would do a thing like that. :whistle:

My grocery spends today were NONE. Again. :dance:

DAY 17
Money Spent Today - £0 Vouchers Spent - £0
Money Spent in Total - £46.86 Vouchers Spent in Total - £5
Money left in purse - £4.14 - Float left- £0/£15
Jan non-foods left- £6.17/£15


I've just prepared tomorrows dinner as we'll be rushing around in morning and only have a couple of hours before DH has to go to bed due to night shift when we get home.
We're having Sausages in thick onion gravy with stuffing, pots, carrots served in a giant yorkie. It smells so good.

Like being back to a menu plan. It takes all the worry out of cooking. I can go on auto pilot now and just follow my list happy in the knowledge that all my notes on defrosting, prep, etc are all down in the book.

sistercas

Grey queen. I love the idea of the drawstring bag. I have quite a few rolls of xmas wrapping paper from the January sales :money: that keep escaping from the cupboard when I open it. Would an old pillowcase do?

I would love to crochet but have never got round to learning ,my mum always said she couldn't teach me because I was left handed . Maybe it's time to try . I can knit reasonably well though and I'm making a penguin ATM which is for the play corner at my mums church , I'll post a pic when it's finished , I just need to buy some safety eyes for it

We have managed to sell a cross trainer on eb@y , it was only being used as a clothes horse lol , so I will be glad to declutter it and make a little money as well :T

GreyQueen

sistercas wrote: »

Grey queen. I love the idea of the drawstring bag. I have quite a few rolls of xmas wrapping paper from the January sales :money: that keep escaping from the cupboard when I open it. Would an old pillowcase do?

It depends on the width of the rolls, which will become the height of the drawstring bag. The bag will need to be a bit taller than the rolls, so that you have enough fabric to make the channel to thread through a ribbon, or cord. You'd have to stand your rolls in the pillowcase in question - based on my own rolls and pillowcases, I'd expect it to come up a bit too short. I was also thinking that making a long thin mini-shopping bag, with cloth strip handles, could be a winner.

A fast fix to the escaping Xmas paper prob is to shove them down the leg of an old pair of tights and hang that up in the wardrobe etc.

I'm delighted that so many others are into the drawstring bag as an organisational tool. It might seem a bit old fashioned but it really does solve a lot of problems, with bags big, middling and even tiny.

I use a drawstring bag in the bottom of the rucksack I use daily for work, to hold those bits and bobs I like to have with me, don't need daily and don't particularly want on public display when the bag is opened. It's a black bag inside a black bag, and very discreet.

I've long since saved those ribbon loops off clothing and I use mine on home-made gift tags, they're just perfect for that.

Oh, and here's a wheeze I thought of last year, in case it might be of benefit to anyone. I had 4 rolls of the exact same Xmas giftwrap taking up a lot of space. So, I wrapped the three around the one, and then vertical slit two of the spare tubes and put them over the outside of the mega-roll, held on by elastic bands. This was to protect the paper from tearing. Since most gift wrap is only a very few meters, this is easy enough to do, and reduced the space taken by gift wrap by 75%.

silvasava

Cheerfulness - LOVE the waiscoat. what colour are you going to do it in? Can I suggest you post a wanted add on Freecycle for circular knitting needles (or any others come to that) as I'm sure there are many lurking unused.
Havn't got time to catch up with all the posts at the moment so will come back later - have a good day all x

babyblooz

I actually made a long thin bag to store my wrapping paper in! Its slightly less than the length of the paper roll and has a couple of handles on top. I made it from the frill section of an old valanced bedsheet just because it was about the right width. It lives in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, along with the christmas presents bought in the Boots 70% off sale.

It corrals all those flipping twirly rolls of paper that seem to untwirl themselves constantly when you need them to be tidy lol!

Really easy to do and so handy because you know exactly where to go each time. If I did it again, I would put a pocket on the outside, so I could store a roll a sellotape, a small pair of scissors and some gift tags, then I could just grab the bag and be all set at wrapping up time.

Reading this back I am a bit worried I am morphing into Martha Stewart!!! As if ...:rotfl:

maryb

I read a book on reducing clutter once which extolled the virtues of drawstring bags. She recommended making a small circular hole on the front, finished with binding, then you could just reach in to put away/find whatever item it contained without having to take the bag off its hook and undo the drawstrings