A quick recap

Recently I teamed up with the lovely Pugh family over at A year without supermarkets, for a gift exchange. You can read about it here and here.

This is all very exciting, and as I was perusing their great blog (it really is inspiring stuff, check it out, and we could all pledge to ditch the supermarket in the New Year!) I saw a post that they had done in celebration of their first month. You can read all about it here. And I thought ‘what a great idea’, a periodic recap of all the goings on that have happened.

So here is my edited highlights, or my Top 10, of the first 3 months (a quarter of the way through!!) of My Make Do and Mend Year:

• I have learned some mending skills, including pulled threads,

              and patching trousers

• I have made my own slippers

• Had my 5 minutes of fame on BBC Radio Wiltshire
• Been to The Big Mend, and met the brilliant Scrapiana, who is inspiring me to mend more and learn more!
• Learned to make better bread at River Cottage

My ‘arty’ shot!

• Joined in with The Love What You Wear Project-a group of about 30 (and counting) who have taken the pledge to not buy any new clothes for a year
• Made a pillowcase dress for the The Dress A Girl Around the World charity at a sewing day at Cordial and Grace with Morwhenna from The Love What You Wear Project, and Louise from Sew Scrumptious
• Become a guest blogger! The Upcycle Movement and The Vintage Fair both very kindly post monthly updates on my adventures. And of course, found a new ‘blogging buddy’ to swap gifts with, in the form of A year without supermarkets!
• Bought ‘new’ boots, been disappointed by new boots, decided to make do with ‘new’ boots, broken new boots and attempted to fix them (twice) and then dyed new new boots

The new boots

• Been sent a gorgeous Bakelite darning mushroom and some vintage haberdashery

The photo doesn’t really do it justice-it is very warm looking and makes you want to pick it up and stroke it!!

In case you hadn’t noticed, I am having a ball! It has already proved to be a life changing experience, in that it has pushed me out of my comfort zone and introduced to a whole new world of people and organisations, all doing their bit to try and change the world. I have ‘met’ people both online via social media, and in real life too, that have inspired me to keep going and to do more, and do better.

 So I am very excited about the next 9 months, and at the moment I really don’t want it to end! There are lots of exciting developments in the pipeline, that will hopefully take My Make Do and Mend Year onwards from what started as a very personal challenge to a much broader challenge to engage my local community, and the wider world, in a little bit of Make Do and Mend!!

Thankyou all so much for reading, and for all your comments (keep them coming, it’s lovely to get some feedback, and I love finding out what you are all up to too!). If you don’t want to miss a thing, then sign up for e-mails, and tell all your friends! Together we will Change The World (one mend at a time)!!