Bev: our “make do and mend” evening

seasonal meal

10 of us have just had a really nice evening at my house with some of the “Living well with less stuff” group + one or two other people. Everyone brought food to share (mainly local and seasonal) – I always love it when we do that as you never know what you are going to get and it is always delicious (well, apart from the time everybody brought salad…). Fiona showed us a great dress she had made out of curtains she bought at a jumble sale for £1 + charity shop skirts and trousers she had taken in or raised or lowered the hems of. Pippa showed us how to stop a zip from coming undone on old jeans (rather than using a safety pin which I’m afraid I usually do) + renovating an apron she didn’t want to throw away and Tom showed us the awl with which he mended boots! Some of us sat there quietly mending our clothes and I started to make face flannels out of a torn towel. (Actually, Fiona had to cut the cloth for me as I couldn’t manage her dress-making scissors – they wouldn’t cut

my disgraceful sewing box

for me!) My mending basket is a total disgrace, with all the thread in a tangle, but I don’t think anyone noticed much – and if you think I am exaggerating, here’s a photo – I did mend the seams on my jacket with it, though.

We also discussed lending things within a group of us, whether we should all sign up for something like Streetbank, which gives you details of people who have things to lend within one mile of you, or whether we would prefer to create a group for ourselves, but I’ll write another blog post about that.

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