Making Good Use

Serendipitous Thrifting

Sometimes I can't believe my good luck when thrifting.  I had come across a great link www.knittingpatterncentral.com/directory/dishcloths.php  which gave loads of free patterns for dishcloths and / or facecloths - apples, pears, maps of various countries, stars, dolphins, squirrels - you name it and someone had kindly posted a link to a dishcloth / facecloth pattern with it on.  I haven't long got back into knitting after a break of quite some years and I'm still finding my feet, so these patterns seemed the ideal small project to have a go at.  After knitting a few cotton facecloths I fancied having a go at doing a dishcloth, but wanted to use the proper dishcloth cotton, which can be washed at high temperatures. 

Lo and behold, a few weeks ago I came across three balls of dishcloth cotton in the yarn basket at my local charity shop.  I quickly nabbed them and on the way home started to think that I could make up my own pattern on a dishcloth - I mean how hard could it be?  The answer - a darn sight harder than I had envisaged.  The first design looked great on paper but not so good when knitted up.  That attempt was frogged very quickly.  Another go with the graph paper - still not good 'in the flesh'.  Finally, at the third attempt I cracked it - the knife, fork and spoon dishcloth in my own unique design.  These are great little projects to work on and I've really got into producing them.  I'm hoping to build up a bit of a stock for some craft fairs later in the year but in the meantime there are a couple in my etsy shop.

Apologies once again for the miniature size of my photos - if you click on them you can get a bigger image.  I'll endeavour to work out how to post a bigger photo over the weekend.  If anyone knows how I do this in a basic Typepad package I'd be really grateful if they could let me know.

Car Boot Booty

We have a small car boot sale in the area every Thursday from Easter until October.  Although this is a fairly small affair, much smaller than the massive one held on the same site every Sunday, it is always worth a visit. 

Today was overcast, windy and very chilly compared to the recent wonderful weather we've been having, but I thought I'd give it a go.  Well, I'm really glad I went as I managed to get a lovely piece of towelling fabric which has a very 1950's feel to it.  I'm pretty sure it's not that old as the condition is too good but I love the bright circles on a black and white 'scribble' background.  First of all I thought I'd make an apron out of it, the towelling fabric would be great for drying wet hands on, but now I think I may hold fire on that idea - perhaps a couple of washbags would be good. 

I also bought this lovely soft glasses case, just the thing for my sunglasses.  The fabric is of houses, hills and cows in fabulous 1970's colours of orange, red, sage and pink.  I'm hoping it's bright enough for me to be able to find it at the bottom of my bag!!

Finally, i picked up this great knitting book - "Have you any wool?" by Jan Messent.  I'd never heard of this book, or the author, before but it's great.  According to the blurb about the book it "aims to encourage readers to use small quantities of any and every yarn available to them for small, interesting and decorative projects."  It shows you how to knit things like a cacti collection, knitted and crocheted fungi, and knitted fruits and vegetables, really unusual things not usually found in a knitting book.  I particularly like the fact that they are small projects which can use up all the odds and ends of wool which are lurking in the bottom of my wool bag.

Total cost for my booty today - £1.30, and I was one very happy camper.

Brought to Book

I'm a great lover of books - all sorts of book, and always have a novel on the go to read before going to sleep.  I'm pretty predictable when it comes to 'bedtime reading', anything under the genre of crime / thriller is my preference.  I particulary like anything by Ruth Rendell (or her pseudonym Barbara Vine), Nicci French, Margaret Yorke, Patrick Redmond, Stephen Booth, Minette Walters - the usual suspects in British crime writing.  Sometimes I become very exotic and even read the American writers Patricia Cornwall and Karin Slaughter (what a fitting name for a crime novelist!!). 

Now I can get through two or so of these books a week which would add up to a lot of dosh if I had to buy the books new.  However, I can honestly say I can't remember when I last bought a new book for myself.  I do buy new books for presents for other people and most Christmas or birthdays I am given at least one new book as a present.  Lately these have been some rather wonderful craft books given by my mother, who knows just what I like in the way of books.  But to feed my crime / thriller habit I buy all my books second hand, usually in charity shops (50p is top dollar for even a hardback book in my local charity shop).   

The other great place for pre-read books is Greenmetropolis (www.greenmetropolis.com).  You can list your used books on their site and if one sells you get £3.00 credited to your account.  You can either have this money transferred to your bank account or use it to buy another book from their site.  If you buy a book it usually costs £3.75 (though some books can be a bit more expensive if they are hardbacks or a particularly heavy paperback), and Greenmetropolis give 5p from every sale to the Woodland Trust to help them plant and conserve trees.  I really like the philosophy of Greenmetropolis because they actively encourage the recycling of books and the planting of trees, if you haven't come across their site before do have a look. 

Old Bags

I've got a bit of a thing about plastic supermarket carrier bags, I really don't like them.  Apparently we use some obscene number like 10 billion a year in the UK alone, they take hundreds of years to break down in landfill, and release disgusting toxins whilst they're decomposing. 

Now I'm very lucky where I live in that I can walk to my local supermarket so am able to make great use of my trusty steed - the old shopping trolley.  I've had this particular trolley for about seven years and it has served me very well.  It's not your usual tartan jobbie, oh no, it is a very fetching shade of blue with blue wheels and lots of shiny chrome.  We bought it from Lakeland (www.lakeland.co.uk) and although it wasn't cheap at the time it has repaid the money time and time again.  I can't imagine how many hundreds of supermarket carrier bags it has saved me using, not to mention developing a bad back and / or arm injuries from the weight of the shopping.  My local supermarket is one of the 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' German supermarkets where you think twice about having a plastic carrier because you have to pay for them.  I think this is an excellent idea and wish all supermarkets would follow their example as this would definitely cut down on the use of plastic bags and their subsequent pollution of the environment.

With the warmer weather now arrived I get out and about more and don't always want to be dragging my shopping trolley with me (not the easiest things to manoeuvre onto public transport!!), so, having been hugely inspired by some of the wonderful craft blogs about, I've started making myself some cloth shopping bags.  I come across some wonderful vintage fabrics in my travels which have really funky patterns and designs and I've used some of them to make a selection of cloth bags (see my photo album on the left for pictures).  Most of these fold up easily so they can be slipped into another bag when not being used and I really like the idea that I'm reducing the need for a plastic bag, reusing my cloth bag time and again, and recycling a piece of vintage fabric.  It's not often I can manage the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) in one fell swoop.  Some of these bags are also for sale in my etsy shop (link on the side bar).