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My costume is simple and subtle this year since I will be dancing the night away in Edinburgh.
What better costume than the one already in my closet? I am wearing black trousers and a cranberry-ish coloured sleeveless top. Ideally, the whole body would be black, but I don’t have a black singlet and the point was to not have to buy or make anything new. My hair will be in pig-tail buns to evoke antennae and the wings will double as my face mask. Add a butterfly necklace and the the deal is sealed!
The photo shows my first attempt at painting the mask. I will use eyeliner this time for a cleaner edge than a q-tip could give.
Happy Halloween!
In July, I picked these up at the charity shop on the Isle of Arran, which is one of my favourites. They always have a fantastic selection of knitting needles, sewing and knitting patterns and a wide variety of sheets and pillowcases (that must have been recycled around the island hundreds of times!).
They tried to charge me £1 for the whole batch and that felt immodest and greedy so, needing the £10 note in my wallet, I gave them £2 instead. The knitting needles are a 4mm and I have no idea what sizes the double headed crochet hook is!
Okay, maybe not magic, but certainly an exciting transformation! I found an embarrassing number of old snacks at the back of the cupboard and thought chex mix would be the perfect way to use them up.
In Scotland, we can only get the wheat type of “chex” (they’re variously called “malties” or “malted wheaties”) and bagel chips are out too. When following the original Chex Party Mix recipe, I found it too buttery so this is how I go about making mine:
Pre-heat oven to 250F or 100C. Melt just over a third of a 500g butter block in a pan on the stove (I just chopped off what looked like less than the original recipe). Add the following amounts of flavouring (twice the amount listed in the original recipe):
4 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1 & 1/2 ts garlic powder
1 ts onion powder
The recipe calls for seasoned salt but since the pretzels and nuts I use are already salted, I put in a few cranks of flavoured pepper.
I had around 6 cups of dried, mixed snacks (different types of nuts, stale-ish pretzels, broken corn chips, pumpkin seeds, wheat chex cereal and added in some bran flakes as well).
Once the sauce was all mixed, I slowly poured and hand-mixed it into the dried mixture for even coverage.
Place on a tray and bake for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
I made some earlier in the week with the standard recipe and found my trays too full to do any meaningful mixing. So this time, I tossed the contents of the tray back into the mixing bowl, mixed and then returned it to the tray. I got a much more even crisp and flavour this way. The pumpkin seeds are my favourite addition to the mix- they add a different sort of crunch and taste contrast. What is your favourite thing to include in chex/snack mix?
Edited to Add: Just as I finished posting this, a betty crocker recipe appeared in my contact’s flickr stream with this “italian” style chex mix recipe- the vinegar looks like a great addition!
Although hair-dos do not really have anything to do with crafting or refashioning, I am posting these here for future reference since we browsed old photos for hours searching for some of our past styles. I feel that even with the same old outfit, a new hair-do can make me feel like I’m wearing something brand-new for a fancy occasion and more likely to use what I have in the interest of frugality and controlled consumption.
I was planning on wearing this dress I refashioned for a wedding last summer but in the end I wore a different one. A week or so before the wedding I noticed a large smudgy stain on the stomach area- obviously a remnant of some delicious dish. I soaked it in borax and washed it to discover that the stain had shrunk but was as dark as ever. Having run out of borax, I decided to soak it again in Soda Ash, or Washing soda. A “strong” solution as advised on the pack eventually removed it! I soaked it for around 5 hours just to be sure. I already had all the matching jewelery for this dress but Partner suggested I wear a dress my sister offered for the borrowing. I am glad I did because now I’ve injected some variety into my dress-wear and am more likely to think of the dress with fresh eyes next time.
A few posts ago I wrote about how wearing the same size led us to compete for shirts but it also means that the dress she brought on her holiday fit me perfectly! You can see me in the red dress ceilidhing in the photo above. With white shoes and a shawl, there wasn’t much accessorizing to do so I kept with the floral theme and wore a silver Charles Rennie MacIntosh inspired bracelet with rectangles and rose buds and two rose bobby pins.
My little sister really is awesome and did our hair for us before the wedding. Here are the hair styles I hope to replicate in the future:
Before you read this post, here’s a delicious muffin I made the other day. I used of a lot of random ingredients (freezer bananas, mixed seeds, an oatmeal-type concoction that I thought was oats until I realised it was museli, etc). I also made soup to knock through ingredients, all the while accompanied by NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me”, my favourite radio show!
And now for something completely different:
My PhD thesis is still under way so I have no illusion about being able to be less of a paper hoarder any time soon. I have 11 binders, two cardboard magazine ‘racks’ and 13 expandable cardboard folders full of documents and fieldnotes from my research, taking up one and a half shelves where I would otherwise have space for books. It’s not that I am going to get rid of these documents. In the future, all research tends to be cumulative in a way but I would tuck them away somewhere. I’ve come to suspect that most university staff only want to work in a department for the priviledge of an office to keep their academic collections separate from their living quarters! This week I filled our recycling bag of papers- thousands of scraps that had already been used on both sides, etc- just sitting around waiting to be classified. Most of the information was no longer useful, like some company phone number without a name- so out it went and I found my desk surface again.
One thing I can begin to whittle down, is my stash- of yarn and fabric. The plastic bins I brought home the other day have been great for that and now I need to really get started on going through what I don’t really need to keep.
I took a large bag of fabric strips (I had the intention of making those into another rug, but the off-white and black didn’t fit anywhere into our schemes or inspire me at all) to the textile recycling skip the other day, freeing up some under-bed space. I am also going to cull our socks – the funky novelty socks we receive as gifts are fun to wear, but not the easiest to darn once they wear so thin. The darning ends up being much thicker than the rest of the sock! Those pairs will be recycled too.
I am not going to have time in the next few years to use up all the half-balls of yarn that I’m not interested in. Many of the colours are going to make it into a de-stash blanket. It’s here if you’re on ravelry. I need to sort through the rest and find a Girl Guides troop to bring it to if there’s enough, or get it on Freecycle or a charity shop.
We have a charity shop bag open in our home at all times. We deliver a full donation bag every three weeks or so. I occasionally post on Freecycle but I need to start taking fuller advantage of it to hand out the things that are unsuitable for donating. I like that you can say “I have this ____ that needs fixing, or repairing, is anyone interested?” and they usually are. The same stuff just wastes the resources of charity shops.
Other ways we sometimes declutter that I would like to make more habitual: a) Selling unwanted books and strange electronics (we have a wireless router that we were sold as “mac compatable”, it wasn’t and then we lost the receipt) on Amazon. b) Finding even more recipes to stretch our fresh foods further with creative uses of the dry ones so my partner doesn’t rush out and buy food because we “don’t have any”. I would like to try a new recipe a week or, realistically, every two weeks.
I am trying to organise all this in my mind because it seems like we are headed towards a gradual change in the road. We are not yet financially comfortable, or even started out in life- parter is still looking for a full time job and I need to finish this PhD and apply for jobs as well. I’ve been keeping my eye open for non-academic positions and applying as I go along, but that must not be in the plan at the moment. Last week I talked to my old boss at the shop about coming back for a shift a week and once the fall semester starts I will have a bit more pocket money from tutoring but I am far from the power earner at this point.
That being said, we have begun to actively think about moving in order to save money. We have such a fantastic set-up right now and are so comfortable, it will be hard to let go of the easy walk to my sports club, the train and the job at the shop.
The question is, at what point does moving to save £100 a month not make sense? We have great landlords and have plenty of warmth and space in this flat. I have lived here for 4 years and it is home. But really, home isn’t a collection of things, home is with one’s partner.
The things just make it harder for us to consider moving. Both of our hobbies take up quite a lot of space, as you can at least gather from my stash descriptions. Moving from the centre of town will knock the prices lower but we still need to be near public transportation and there’s only a certain distance away that could make that move worthwhile. Another thing is that we barely have any furniture in this country. We have a bookshelf, a few chairs…no bed (we do have an air mattress we could use for a while!) etc. So we would need to rely heavily upon our network of fantastic people, freecycle, store vouchers from completed surveys, and finding a decent furniture charity shop somewhere. We also have discussed moving out of central Scotland if any jobs come up, so we really need to start preparing. This potential move may not happen, yet my brain is a-buzz.
1. Be ruthless with worthless (to me) stash fillers that someone else may be able to use- yarn, cds, look into getting a crafty things box together for the guides or other group that appreciates craft supplies.
2. Keep Amazon active and list more.
3. Get the plants under control. Re-pot more babies and give away to friends and freecycle. Pare down to just the main parent plants and keep them happy. Then, freecycle the extra pots.
4. Work on wardrobe. Recycle non-reparable socks, fix the things I plan to fix, get rid of extra bags, wet suits and other strange things that we never use.
5. Crafting priorities- finish sewing the wedding gift, use of the acrylics for the destash blanket, use the large partial-sheets in stash for appliance covers. Go for the biggest impact- use the most materials for the most useful items first!
This post has mostly been to organise my own thoughts, so here are a list of some of the blogs and posts that inspire me when attempting to de-clutter. I may have posted some before but they’re relevant again!
I am inspired by Smallnotebook in general and this new post is particularly relevant. Prioritizing life- well said. That is exactly what we are trying to do here and it seems that it is all around at the moment. One friend of mine has decided to completely disconnect with all non-essentials. She’s keeping her email, but unplugging facebook, her blog and everything else that she feels has cluttered her life. I also really like this post about moving at smallnotebook- it will come in handy some day. Livingsmall is also inspirational for getting rid of ’stuff’. Zen habits has a good approach to stuff. While I don’t keep a wardrobe as basic as this, I am working towards a streamlined and compatible system [and another] of only clothing that I love and that mean something to me.
While visiting my older sister, I had a flick through a clothing catalogue my nieces receive and was interested to see pages which could have been from wardrobe refashion images all over the internet. I guess ‘fashion’ is responding. Some of the shirts gave me ideas for refashioning men’s button shirts.
When I started this blog two years ago, I was unsure about how long I would follow through with it. While I haven’t been the most regular poster I find that I now love this blog. It is my place to save my progress, inspiration and thoughts, not to mention the fact that it’s much easier to pull up the page and share projects without lugging around a book of scattered ideas!
Glancing back at the original post, I was surprised to see that I have basically avoided (excepting the occasional wagon-fall) purchasing new clothing for the past two years when I have second hand or hand made options available. I hadn’t realised that much time has passed, simply because it feels normal for me now. My confidence in my projects has also increased exponentially and I am now excited to give handmade gifts to everyone rather than a select few. Having friends that say No one gives gifts like me, or Everyone always loves my gifts (although of course these friends, being friends, are biased) definitely helps too! To set the scene for this blog-iversary (or whatever all those bloggin’ pros out there call it), here’s a shot of my recent 29th birthday cake!
During my visit with my parents I emptied some of my old things out of the attic and they sorted through their closets for a big charity shop drop. I noticed a cranberry coloured henley in my dad’s pile of clothes and tried it on. It fit perfectly and I wore it for the rest of the day not noticing the gaping hole in the elbow!
I did two rows of running stitch around the hole and sewed a velour heart on top. The velour was from a pair of pants I wore as a toddler. I added a second heart near the neckline to cover a pin-hole. I had thought about embroidering “I wear my heart on my sleeve” near the large heart but decided that it wasn’t necessary. The pictures may not show it, but the heart colour matches very closely and gives a subtle change in texture and shade to the garment- I really liked this refashion!
These jeans debuted last weekend on a road trip down to Richmond and Kirby Stephen, England.
They were originally a pair of mens “fashion” jeans, as evidenced by all the neatly arranged holes. A few weeks ago, two holes near the knee joined forces and i knew I had to patch these up before all the holes followed suit!
I trimmed the threads holding each hole ‘together’ so that the fabric would show through. Then, I took two large rectangles of fabric from my stash (we call it the Time Lord fabric since I think it looks like space and time travel…I used it to line a Tardis bag I crocheted a few years ago) and sewed them into the thigh areas, leaving several inches around the holes. I then turned them right side out to stitch boxes around each individual hole with a few zig-zag lines over top both fabric layers. Last, I made (what is supposed to be) a lotus flower applique and added it to the outside. I LOVE them! I am so proud of this refashion and know that they’re once more my party-jeans!
After trying the reach the boxes near the knees, I think I finally understand the idea of a free-arm sewing machine. It would have given me much more maneuverability!
Another completed project- which I handed in yesterday- is my first rough draft of my thesis! Still plenty of work to do on it but now, all my ideas are on paper in a structure that I think works!
…is the name of a BBC mini-programme which takes 6 young fashion conscious (obsessed) Brits to India to experience life in the garment industry. While it is half reality tv and half documentary, the programme explores the questions of working conditions, wages, and the lack of other options for some skilled workers trying to support their families. If you’re in the UK, give it a try on the BBC iplayer or on BBC3. It may not do much to change the majority of viewers, but a national corporation bringing these issues into general discussion is always a positive step. Here are some video clips from the website.
