In today’s throw away society we have forgotten how to pick up a needle and thread and mend a seam or small tear. It’s too easy to toss an item away and duck down to the nearest clothing outlet and replace the item, or stock up on extra clothing we will doubtfully ever end up wearing. I bet most of us have at least one item of clothing lurking in our wardrobes with the tags still on.
But I wonder how many of you out there realise the impact throwing away your clothes has on the environment, let alone your hip pocket. Check out this article here that shows Australians send 85% of textiles to landfill. Some of these items are of a synthetic nature and may never break down! We need to be more mindful of the waste we produce if we are to leave a livable world for our children.
For close to two decades now I have purchased minimal clothing for myself, instead I have accepted hand-me-downs from my mother and my friends; and if some of these haven’t fitted correctly I have made alterations. For my daughter, I accept hand-me-downs from my friend’s children, and anything I have bought or that is still good from the hand-me-downs I have passed onto other friends with children younger than mine.
I never throw articles of clothing in the bin. I pass items onto local Op-shops, or if the item is too damaged to be of any good to anyone then I try to salvage as much of the material from the item I can for use in patchwork quilting. Buttons, zips and other fastenings may also be salvaged for future sewing projects.
Now I hear some of you saying “but I can’t sew!” YES YOU CAN! Sewing does not require great skill to achieve the desired results here. If you are truly a beginner to sewing then you can learn either from a class at a local community centre or through a YouTube tutorial. If you absolutely must dispose of the item then please consider donating the item, or passing it on to a friend or family member. Next, make sure the item you purchase to replace it is made of more natural than synthetic fibres. Also, ask yourself, do you really need to replace the item? Of course, this is often the case with uniforms or wet weather gear, but make sure you are not consuming for consuming’s sake.
Clothing can be costly, but a needle and thread are relatively cheap. You don’t need a whizz-bang sewing machine to mend a seam or darn a sock; often a few small stitches can save an article of clothing from certain doom. As my mother used to say “a stitch in time saves nine.”
There are many occasions in life that have us reaching for our wallets, and welcoming a brand new life into this world is one such occasion. We want to shower the little Prince or Princess with gifts of love, and give a gift to the new Mother that will hopefully make her life in her new role just a little easier. But what happens when we reach for that wallet, open it, only to see moths fly out? Uh-oh! We can’t be the only ones in this little person’s life to show up without a thoughtful gift to show our love. Hmm… time to get crafty!
I was in this situation recently so I am happy to share with you what I created to welcome a special little man into the world. I began making his gift before we knew if he was a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ so I went with the trusty safe colours of lemon and mint. A few years ago when I had my daughter, out of all the gifts we received (I’m still going through the seemingly endless supply of Johnson & Johnson’s Shampoo) we only received 1 pram blanket. Once upon a time I would never have considered giving a pram blanket as a baby shower gift, in fact I have to show my ignorance here and confess that prior to my pregnancy I had never really heard of it… I mean I know what a pram is, of course, and a blanket, but I didn’t realise there were designated blankets for the pram, I figured you just grabbed a blanket and used it in the pram. But I’m sure most mothers would tell you that some blankets designed for cots etc. are just too bulky for this purpose. The beautiful minky pram blanket we received from my in-laws was just the perfect size for use in the pram or stroller and wasn’t too bulky if needed to be carried in the nappy bag.
So for as practical as the good ol’ pram blanket is, we only received one… and it was white… any Mum can tell you how often a white baby item requires washing. So those times when the pram blanket had to be washed, a folded bunny rug had to suffice but it wasn’t as nifty or practical as our perfectly sized, soft and snuggly pram blanket.
So I figured the new Mum would most likely received a good stash of cot blankets and bunny rugs (I know I ended up with a heap of handed down muslin wraps and bunny rugs, as people seem to be keen to offload their excess stash onto new Mums) but I recalled that I only ever received 1 pram blanket. When it comes to the arrival of a new baby I like to give a practical gift as I know that was most helpful to me when I became a new Mum. So I decided on a crocheted pram blanket in lemon and mint. This was my gift to the new baby, something warm, snuggly and comforting.
Crocheted Granny Square Pram Blanket in Lemon and Mint.
I was delighted when I finally got to give this gift to the new parents (due to certain circumstances I was unable to deliver this present until about 6 weeks after his birth), and to have them say that they were only just saying they could do with some blankets of a smaller size. Since pram blankets tend to be more square shaped than rectangle, for this particular blanket I crocheted in a traditional granny square fashion until I was happy with the size, then I added borders. You can use either a half double crochet or double crochet (or whatever you wanted really) to create the border… I started with one round of single crochet first to give a foundation for my border and finish off the granny square part. The edging around the border is simply interweaving chains (8 chains long each). The edging I just played around with until I came up with something I liked. Of course, if you are a knitter, you can do what suits you, to achieve a similar result.
So that was baby sorted. What about Mum? I remembered that one of the most nifty useful items I had with my daughter was a nappy wallet (again showing my ignorance, I had never heard of one until I had my daughter). If, like me, you have never come across these handy doo-dads before, they are essentially a ‘wallet’ big enough (about the size of a clutch purse/handbag) to fit in a couple of disposable nappies, or if like me you used cloth, then 1-2 modern cloth nappies, plus a packet of wipes. These are really handy for those times when you are just ducking out for a short trip (such as to the shops) and don’t want the arduous task of packing and carrying a fully equipped nappy bag, but you know that if you don’t at least have some wipes and a spare nappy or two that you will inevitably get caught short with a perfectly timed epic poo-slosion if you dare to duck out of the house unprepared.
So once the baby’s arrival was announced and we knew we were welcoming a beautiful little man into the world, I could do away with gender neutral colours (however what I ultimately chose works just as well for a girl). Knowing that both the new parents were animal lovers, I searched my fabric stash and came out with some fat quarters in a dog print and a chook print. I will say it now (if I haven’t already previously) I suck at reading patterns of any kind (which tends to surprise people). I’m a kinaesthetic learner and to me, a pattern may as well be written in jibberish for all it’s worth. So I pulled out my old nappy wallet and studied it intently. I took some measurements and once I was satisfied that I had at least a vague inkling of what I was doing, I set about cutting and sewing the fat quarters until they somewhat resembled the nappy wallet I owned. I added a metal snap for closure, mine had Velcro but I liked the ease of snaps to apply (though I did stuff it up the first time by attaching it back to front- I’m gonna chalk that one up to Fibromyalgia brain fog). See the pictures below for the finished product, I used approx. 2 fat quarters for this project, one for inner lining and one for outer.
Handmade Nappy WalletThis is what the Nappy Wallet looks like opened with two disposable nappies and a packet of travel wipes inside.
Now, I picked up a ready made card at my local discount store but if you have the time and the inclination you can put those scrapbooking skills to good use and make a beautiful personalised card. Though I got the card, I did my usual trick and gave very little thought to gift wrapping. Luckily I had some sturdy brown paper bags on hand as these seem to be becoming popular for stores to use for your purchased goods rather than give you an environmentally unsafe plastic bag. These brown paper bags are brilliant, they are quite hardy and the best part is you can decorate them and dress them up however you like to repurpose them as gift bags. See my example below.
You are only limited by your imagination here- you could use all sorts of techniques to dress the bag- paint, scrapbooking embellishments, stickers etc.
So all in all, a thoughtful gift that didn’t break the bank, in fact all the materials I already had in my stash. I think my next blog post should be around the importance of building a stash and how to do so on the cheap. This gift didn’t cost a lot of money but was valuable for its time and thoughtfulness.
People can be frugal for a number of reasons. For me it was a skill I had to acquire because money is tight, but I have known wealthy people who buy their clothing from Op Shops (second hand goods stores) because they enjoy finding vintage style clothing to add to their wardrobes. For some it’s a way of being able to put extra money aside to save for a holiday or new home, for some it’s the importance of reusing rather than wasting, and for some it’s a learned way of life handed down through generations from a time when money was scarce.
I also tend to begrudge paying money for anything that I can make myself. I am also conscious of the footprint I leave on this Earth, and so in recent times I have starting researching into the art of upstyling/upcycling- reusing and repurposing. When I was younger the thought of reusing “rubbish” or “junk” held very little appeal to me, and attending Trash and Treasure markets and Op Shops bored me.
These days I see the fun and adventure in these things. I love to go on Op Shop crawls, attend Garage Sales, and second hand markets… and oh! the treasures I have found! If you are the creative upcycling type, these places hold a plethora of supplies and inspiration.
Also, much to my husband’s despair, I rarely throw anything away these days. I have a nice collection of empty jars, and recently I cracked a bowl (I can be a little absent minded in the kitchen and poured extremely hot liquid into a cereal bowl when I needed to drain something), I refused to throw the bowl away because I can repurpose it for mosaic tiles. Currently I’m collecting ring pulls from drink cans because I stumbled across the art of making jewellery, bags, clothing etc. out of ring pulls on my dearest Pinterest. This was good timing too since my brother recently decided to start collecting cans to raise money for an organisation he is involved with.
When I can see a creative outlet involved with being frugal it helps me to feel better about my financial situation, which is the point I’ve tried to get across in a few of my past blogs. It helps to take a tight budget and turn it into a challenge or adventure. You could even turn it into a small business! I have seen clothing that has been picked up in Op Shops, altered by someone with some imagination and a sewing machine, then sold for big profit.
Whatever your reason for being frugal is, you can have fun with it. It can save you money, make you money, and teach you to value and appreciate things that perhaps once before you didn’t. It can also help you to reduce for footprint on this Earth by reusing and wasting very little.
Metal Stamped washers made into bracelet.
Above is an example of reusing tap washers to make into a bracelet. This is one I was commissioned to make a few years ago with the names of the woman’s three children on it.
So I’d love to hear from my readers, please leave me a comment and tell me what being frugal means to you, and also any pictures you may have on items you have upcycled, I’d love to see your creations.
The Frugal Brown Witch 