Making Good Use

Another Freebie

The cull of books listed for sale on Amazon continues unabated.  Amongst the tomes that have been relegated to the charity bag I came across this vintage knitting book which I thought I'd offer as another freebie - hopefully someone out there might find it useful.

The Structure of Knitted Fabrics, printed sometime in the 1950s I would guess, published by the International Wool Secretariat. (There is a bit of damage to the spine but the body of the book is in excellent condition - just thought I'd better point that out!)

It has a fantastic directory of stitches from the basic garter stitch right through to complicated feather and shell patterns, with instructions for knitting fair isle, bobbles, cables, embroidery on knitting, and beaded knitting, and a whole lot more.

There are also patterns for socks, jumpers, cardigans (beware the sizes are rather small - 36 inch chest being the largest ladies size), baby bootees and matinee coat.

There are even picture instructions for blocking knitted pieces, and how to wash your woollens.  Plus a page about adding button holes and zips.

It's only a slim book so I'm happy to post anywhere in the world.  Just leave a comment and I'll pick a name from the virtual hat and announce the winner on Wednesday (17.12.08)

Anything to Avoid the Housework Again

I don't know what it is about Fridays that prompts me to get out the sewing machine to avoid doing the housework.

Today it was another vintage pillowcase tote bag instead of the ironing, tidying, dusting etc that I should have been doing.  (Many apologies for the terrible photo - it was the best I could manage in the half-light that passes for daylight here in December.)

I've had a pair of these unused vintage pillowcases stashed away for ages.  As they were totally plain I didn't know quite what to do with them.  Last week, whilst looking for scraps to make some cards, I came across the leftover bits of a lovely vintage piece of linen fabric with these birds as part of the pattern.  I immediately thought they'd go nicely on one of the pillowcase bags - and I'm quite pleasantly surprised by the result.

This pillowcase is 50 per cent cotton and 50 per cent terylene - not a fabric I'd particularly want to lay my head on at night, but it makes a bag with a nice bit of substance.  Again, the 'old gold' colour wouldn't be my idea of a good look for the bedroom, but it does make a great colour for the bag.

If anyone is interested in this bag, or this one from last week's housework avoiding session

drop me an e-mail - elizabethyule(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk. The bags are £4.95 each with £1.00 P&P in the UK (a tad more for P&P if you're outside of the UK.)  The bags are approx. 17 inches tall and approx. 19 inches wide, the handles are approx. 24 inches long.

I'd Like to Meet the Muppet

Who thought that the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA) was a good way to teach children to read.

ITA was a very popular 'modern' teaching tool when I started infant school (in 1965), although, thankfully, my school taught in the old fashioned way.  My grandfather, who had been a teacher, strongly cautioned my mother against the ITA - and thank heavens he did.

I knew that the ITA was a now-discredited blip in the history of teaching children to read, but I had no idea how crazy it was until I came across this book yesterday.

In order to make sense of the text you have to read it out loud (presumably that was the whole idea) and there are characters in there that bear no relation to the alphabet in English at all.  Oddly enough, there is just the faintest hint of 'text speak' in the shortening of words - which just goes to show that nothing is really new.

Can you imagine how confused the children were who learnt to read this way and then had to start all over again and learn to read 'proper' English.

Having totally rubbished ITA, I must say that the illustrations in this book are lovely and take me right back to my days learning to read with good old Janet and John books.

Was anyone out there taught to read using the Initial Teaching Alphabet - did it actually work or was it the total nightmare it seems to be?

Giving the Hairdresser the Chop

The last time I had my hair cut at the hairdressers (in early August I think), it cost me £25.00 for a wash, cut and blow dry.  I'm sure that is a perfectly reasonable price to pay at a hairdressers but with the credit crunch really beginning to bite, and wanting to cut back my expenditure as far as possible I knew I would have to find another alternative.  I knew that cutting my hair myself was a tad beyond my capabilities - just trimming my own fringe has been known to result in some rather dodgy results, especially the night I decided to attack it after having drunk some homemade pear schnapps, think Laurence Olivier's hairstyle as Henry V but on a slant.

Luckily, my lovely neighbours have a friend who is a mobile hairdresser.  She came and cut my hair in October and I was very pleased with the result, she'll be coming again tomorrow to give me another shearing - and the price? £4.50.   Not only does she make a very good job of the cutting, but she also comes to the house - which means I don't have to venture out in this freezing weather -  as I wash my hair myself just before she arrives there is no horrible scalp-itching ungents slapped on my nut before I can say 'no, thank you'. and I don't end up with some ultra-sleek styling which is totally at odds with the rest of my appearance.

She also cuts men's hair so last Friday evening she very kindly made an exception to evening visits (luckily she only lives round the corner from us) to come and run the clippers over P's hair.  He had been paying £8.00 to have his hair clipped at the hairdressers and she charged £2.50.  Excellent.

The winner of the freebie craft book is Maureen in New Zealand.  Maureen, let me have your address and I'll put it in the post to you.

Feed the Birds, 2d a Bag

This incredibly bold and /or desperate blackbird pecking at one of the windfall apples right outside where I was sitting by the french windows made me think of the 'Feed the Birds' song from Mary Poppins. 

Some very swift beak action here.

I'd pretty much stopped putting out bread and bits and bobs for the birds since the 'rat catcher' told me it was just encouraging mice too, but these past few days the birds have seemed increasingly frantic looking for food around the garden, so I've relented and started putting out bread, bits of cheese, cold pasta - anything that might help them survive this cold snap we're having.  How anything as tiny as a bird manages to survive the frosty nights we've been having I don't know

I know not all of it actually gets to the birds as I've seen next door's cat taking a keen interest in the bits on the grass too.  Although why a well-fed, pampered moggy wants to eat bits of stale bread is beyond me!

I like the way he's eyeing up the apple in this photo - like it might be going to peck him back!

Freebie

These days selling second-hand books on Amazon has beome a lot more cut-throat than it used to be - a by-product of the credit crunch I presume with more people looking to make some extra cash.  Even books that start off being quite lucrative often end up a few months later being totally useless for re-sale as the sale price gets undercut time and again.  I'm forever removing books from Amazon and relegating them to a charity shop once again. 

At the weekend a 1960's book called 'Crafting for Juniors' met just such a fate.  But as I was looking through it I thought I'd see if anyone reading the blog would like it instead.

It has all sorts of 'wholesome' vintage craft ideas for making things from cardboard boxes, envelopes or egg boxes.

There are also ideas for simple clay pots and instructions for tie-dying fabric.

The illustrations are great, I love the bold red and white graphics.

If anyone would like the book - which was originally aimed at junior school teachers but the projects would, I imagine, work just as well at home - leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name from the virtual hat (that'll be P choosing a random number again) tomorrow afternoon.  It's only a slim book so I'm happy to post anywhere in the world.

Displacement Activity

This morning, when I should have been dusting, changing the bed, washing up and / or ironing, I was making two very summery and pretty pillowcase tote bags.  Why?  Well, I came across the pillowcases in the pile of fabric the other day whilst looking for scraps to make cards from and, of course, decided that even though it is the middle of winter, and I have 1001 other things I should be doing, I just had to turn them into bags.  Classic displacement activity syndrome - anything to avoid the housework!!

Upside Down (Boy, You Turn Me)*

Years ago I remember reading somewhere that the sign of a thrifty household is if there are bottles turned upside down to get every last drop out of them.  Annoyingly, I can't remember if I read this in the wonderful Tightwad Gazette book, or if it was in the long-defunct, but sadly missed, 'Penny-Pincher' newsletter (did anyone else ever subscribe to that?), but the sentiment is certainly true for me.  There are often bottles of salad cream or tomato ketchup upside down in the fridge (irritatingly crashing over every time the door is opened!), or a washing-up liquid bottle teetering on its very small cap next to the sink so that every last drop is drained out.

Today I managed to wring enough shower gel from what seemed to be an empty bottle for the whole shower (it had been turned upside down the last time I showered as I thought there might be a bit more in there), and enough moisturiser for my face from what really did seem to be an empty bottle (also turned upside down last time it was used).  This pleased me perhaps a little too much, and I should probably get out more!!  But, as that annoyingly-misplaced quote also said, you've paid for the whole contents of a bottle, jar, tub etc. so you might as well get all you can out of it, otherwise you're just throwing money away.

*Whenever I spy an upside down bottle or jar I always hear that Diana Ross song in my head - yup, I definitely need to get out more!!

Scrap Material Greetings Cards

There was an interesting little article in Sew Hip issue 2 about using up scraps of material to make greetings cards.  Now, I've got a lot of little bits of material knocking about, and a few blank cards too, so this morning I thought I'd give it a go.  I have tried sewing 'interesting' bits of material to card stock before with only limited success, but there was an excellent tip in the article for securing the material to the card with some double-sided tape before you start sewing - genius, it makes all the difference.

The Buzz Lightyear card is for a certain nephew, the ginger and white cat card is for my next-door neighbours for Christmas (there's a definite look of their cat Jester about it).  Thanks to Heather for both those pieces of material.   The daisy card is just one of those 'it might come in useful at some point' cards.

With the ludicrous price of cards in the shops I'm pleased to have found another way of using up bits and pieces and making something useful from them.  My Mum, who's a wonderful photographer, was saying that she too had been making some cards this morning from some of the photos she has taken as she just couldn't justify the prices they were asking in the shops either.

Sew Hip Issue 2

My local W H Smiths has very conveniently been stocking the new magazine 'Sew Hip', for a small-town branch I was pretty impressed.  I knew that issue 2 was due out over the weekend so got hold of a copy ASAP.  It's another excellent issue, with all sorts of great interviews and projects - and some great ideas from Nichola Prested about making clothes from thrifted fabric.

As I was flicking through it I was very pleased to see one of my pillowcase totes featured again - and this time alongside a Tesco Cath Kidston bag. 

I feel very honoured to have one of my bags in the same photo as a CK one.  The article was all about eco shopping bags - a subject close to my heart - and I was thrilled to be featured again, especially as I didn't know anything about it, so it was a lovely surprise to see that photo.