Making Good Use

Stuff

I feel like I'm drowning in 'stuff' at the moment.  The dining room is full of boxes and bags of books and other bits and bobs that are destined to be collected by the local hospice charity shop warehouse tomorrow - I can't wait.  There are 500 plus ex-Greenmetropolis books to go and I know I shall feel much free-er once they've gone. Then I can get on with setting up a sewing corner for myself in the dining room. 

I read an article in the Saturday Telegraph last week that said second-hand booksellers were really booming at the moment as people were looking to buy cheaper second-hand books instead of new ones.  Not in my little neck of the woods they're not!  In the past three months I'd only sold four books on Greenmetropolis - and at approx. £2.50 'earnings' per sale it was no longer worth having the dining room resemble a second-hand book store.  My Amazon sales have not really fared much better - having sold nothing at all since before Christmas.  But at least when I do sell a book on Amazon it is for a reasonable profit.  So, for the time being, I'm quite happy to keep the 400 or so books that I've got listed there.  They all now fit quite neatly into one very large bookcase and so are really no problem at all.

I was going to head out to the shed and have a root around in a couple of stray boxes that are lurking out there -  I've really no idea what's in them, although suspect it is bits of crockery that never made it into the miniscule kitchen storage that we've got in this house - but we've just had a rather ferocious hail storm strike, complete with thunder and lightning.  So I think I'll put off searching through that 'stuff' a little while longer.  I'll go and have a look through the under-bed drawers instead.  I know there's a whole load more 'stuff' just waiting to be sorted out in those.

And the Winner is ....

The 'virtual hat' (that's P being asked to choose a number between 1 and 16 off the top of his head) chose comment number one which was Sandie.  Sandie, let me have your name and address and I'll get the magazine in the post to you.

Thank you very much to everyone who took part - keep checking back for a few more book giveaways in the next couple of weeks, as I kept back any likely-looking craft books from my ex-Greenmetropolis stock.

A Little Light Thrifting

I've been quite lucky on the thrifting front this week.  It started with a rather nice lemon Charles Tyrwhitt shirt for P - £2.25 (these shirts retail at approx. £65 new.)  What appears to be an unworn Disney shop summer T-shirt for DN - 99p from Oxfam (and smelling of smoke as there was a small fire in our local Oxfam a couple of months ago.  Walking into the shop is like going into a bonfire, the smell is still so strong.)

A few nice crafty bits and bobs for myself.  The vintage Spear's Weaving Loom - Maureen's lovely little woven bag that she sent me last week made me think I'd like to give weaving on a small scale a try - 75p.  Three balls of various yarn - for making pom poms from - £1 the lot.  And the vintage Ladybird 'Things to Make' book - 25p.  Lovely illustrations and projects in this book - I've got an idea for making greetings cards from the pages.

And a really lovely pure cotton Marks and Spencer double duvet cover and two pillowcases - I love the faded roses print with pink ticking edging - £1 from the 'Bargain Box' at a church in Basildon this morning.

Thank you very much to everyone who left a comment about 'roadkill money'.  Wow!  There really are some amazing finds out there.  It makes me all the more determined to keep my eyes on the ground when I'm out and about.

Also, there's still time to enter the Sew Hip Issue 3 Giveaway - just leave a comment on last Tuesday's post to enter your name in the draw.

Pom Pom's A-Plenty

I saw this fabulous idea over at Wise Craft, and had one of those eureka moments.  Here was the ideal way to use up all the little bits and bobs of wool that I had knocking about and I had some unopened Clover Pom Pom Makers - from the wonderfully useful (if a tad expensive) visit to Get Knitted 18 months ago.  It's now become highly addictive.

There are cerise pink fluffy pom poms.

Sea green fluffy pom poms.

Oddments from the knitted blanket project poms poms.

And really big 'wonder what this yarn would look like as a pom pom' pom poms.

In For a Penny

In her book 'How I Lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day', Kath Kelly describes how she managed to pick up approx. £120 in a year from what she calls 'roadkill money.'  She describes picking up a £20 note from a sodden pavement and adding it to two other twenties, a tenner and a £2 coin - all of which she'd found in the space of three months.

My father was great one for picking up bits and pieces - coins, nails, nuts and bolts etc from the pavement or gutter.  He once even came across a large coil of thick blue rope which he lugged home all the way from the Costa del Sol - because, you never know, it might just come in useful. (I can't really shout as I once broke a rucksack carting a very heavy complete Trivial Pursuit game back from Spain - it was total bargain in a charity shop in Fuengirola!)  But I don't think Dad ever picked up any notes (or if he did he kept mighty quiet about it).  In later life, he used to complain that macular degeneration was making him go blind but, as we pointed out, his eyes were still good enough to spot a penny on a brown pavement.

I did know someone years ago who found a £10 note stuffed down the side of a bus seat, apparently the money couldn't have come at a more opportune time as this person was completely broke at the time, and wondering where their next meal was coming from.

So, with all this in mind, and statistics like there may be £26 million of dropped pennies lurking in the streets, I've been keeping a very careful eye open for 'roadkill money.'  I thought it might be interesting to keep a tally of what I find on the blog (well, interesting to me anyway!!)  So, without further ado, the grand total of 'roadkill money' I've picked up so far in 2009 is - wait for it - 3p.  I'm obviously hoping for a bit more as the year goes on and I'll make a note each time I find something.  I don't expect to find anything like £120 but a couple of pounds would be good.

What's the most 'roadkill money' you've ever found?

Sew Hip Issue 3 Giveaway

I'll spare you the details - non-confirmation of a subscription (a Christmas present from my lovely Mum - thank you very much, Mum) and impatience on my part being the component parts - but I've ended up with two copies of Sew Hip issue 3.  So I thought I'd offer one as a giveaway.

There are some great sewing projects, including this rather splendid hippo.

A Union Jack pillow

And, right up my street, a knitting bag made from charity shop material.

There is also a pattern to make the skirt on the cover, an interview with Hilary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls and loads of other great articles and ideas.  If you'd like to enter the giveaway please leave a comment on this post.  I'll draw a name from the 'virtual hat' on Saturday 17th January. I'm happy to post anywhere in the world.

As If By Magic

As I've been going through plastic washing-up brushes at the rate of knots, I thought it was time I knitted myself some cotton dishcloths to use instead.  I've been knitting them to sell for the past two years but hadn't actually got round to using them myself.  I found a great pattern from Homespun Living  for a waffle dishcloth, as recommended by Down to Earth.

I was really pleased with how it turned out but kept thinking how much better it would look made in a crisp white cotton instead of the traditional cream which was all I had.

As if by magic, a box arrived this morning all the way from Australia.  I couldn't believe it when I opened it up and found four balls of white cotton yarn and four balls of a rather nice coffee colour cotton too.

The parcel had come from The Shopping Sherpa - so thank you very much TSS for your incredibly well- timed and extremely welcome parcel. 

Just the Ticket

I had a lovely surprise packet arrive from Maureen in New Zealand yesterday.

There was a lovely handmade card, a piece of pohutukawa blossom print fabric (Maureen thoughtfully included a note telling me what it was) - very cheerful, just the thing for brightening up a very grey and foggy morning, and the most gorgeous little woven bag which Maureen made herself on a cardboard loom.  She said it was her first attempt at weaving with a cardboard loom and the result is incredibly professional.   Thank you very very much Maureen, it was a lovely surprise to receive such a nice package.

The bag is fantastic and will be just the ticket to store this little beauty in, which was a surprise Christmas present from P.

Super Simple Wrap

I've been wanting to knit a wrap for ages, something simple to keep my back and shoulders warm in the evenings.  Knowing this Mum very kindly gave me some beautiful Rowan Cashsoft Chunky wool for Christmas.

It's the most gorgeous old rose colour and is wonderfully soft to the touch.  All I needed was to find a pattern that would be suitable.  I had thought about making something up as I was going along but didn't want to make a hash of things with such lovely wool.  A quick trawl through the wonderful Knitting Pattern Central  and I came up with this pattern.  The needle size was the same as for the Cashsoft Chunky and I even had a button that was the right size (bought 18 months ago from Get Knitted).  So now all I need to do is print off the pattern and away I go.  The wrap looks large enough to go around even my broad shoulders!

De-clutter Crazy

There's something about being away from home for a while that makes me look at things with a fresh eye when I get back, especially at New Year when I'm thinking about new starts and new ideas. 

For a long time I've been selling any books that were no good for Amazon on Greenmetropolis.  I liked their ethos and although I only 'earnt'  £3.00 per book sold (and from that I had to deduct second-class postage) it was quite a nice steady little supplement to my earnings.  Now, I don't know what has changed but over the past couple of months I've only sold two books, and it had got to the point where the piles of books for sale on Greenmetropolis were growing ridiculously high again (I did have a major cull of the books I had listed for sale on there in the summer too.)  Whilst I was at my Mum's I had one of those 'eureka' moments and thought if I get rid of all the books cluttering up the dining room, clear out the accumulated cr*p from the desk drawers, swap around said desk and a large bookcase (also crammed with non-selling Greenmetropolis books), then I could make room for a small area where I could keep my sewing machine out permanently, which - fingers crossed and with a fair wind behind me - might actually mean I get to use it more often.  That anyway is the plan.

At the moment the dining room looks like a bomb has hit it.  There are a couple of boxes of books already sorted out (I'm double checking them on Amazon before I finally donate them), half-empty shelves in two bookcases and books, books, books wherever I look.  Luckily a charity sack came through the letterbox this morning from the British Heart Foundation (who will collect books - many charity sacks are for clothing only) so they'll be getting a sackload of books on Friday.  The rest of them will be destined for the local hospice charity shop warehouse who are very good at collecting larger donations, and who never seem to mind taking books either.  I shall breathe a huge sigh of relief when they are finally gone and the dining room will probably seem twice as big when we're not tripping over teetering piles of books. 

Having been well and truly bitten by the de-cluttering bug at the moment I've also been throwing things from other drawers and cupboards willy-nilly - including some scarily out of date herbal medicines.  I'm always complaining that our house is too small, but I think the real issue is we just have too many 'things' in it.  I'm really looking forward to getting rid of some of them over the next few weeks.