Back to thrifty ways

I haven't dared add up the total cost of our Irish holiday.  I have a rough idea.  Eeek!! But it was all budgeted for and some expenses were paid earlier in the year like when I booked the ferry early in January and got 20% off.  So now it's time to knuckle down and get back to my thrifty ways.  Afterall it's the reason we were able to afford to do all the fab activities on holiday :-) I've got a couple of big house expenses coming up and want to make sure I've got the cash for them.

This week I've made sure to use up all the leftover bits n bobs of veg in the fridge.  First picture is a healthier coleslaw of carrot, apple, onion and walnuts with a cider vinegar and mayonnaise dressing.  I've added half a cooked chicken breast.

This one was a satay style sauce of peanut butter and sweet chilli sauce with leftover cooked turkey (yellow stickered of course!) and some sweetcorn from a meal The Teenager made himself.  It was nice but lacked something.

This morning I popped down to visit mum and dad.  I never leave their house without a bag of stuff!! Today it was soft fruit.  About 15lbs of blackcurrants, raspeberries and gooseberries!  Their garden is producing tons of fruit this year.  My lovely mum was running out of space to store it all.

Some of it was frozen.  The gooseberries are actually from last year.  The frozen stuff  I've popped into my freezer for now but it's bursting at the seams too.  So I need to find some good ideas apart from jam to use it up (as a family we don't eat much jam now).

I've already got 2lbs of blackcurrants soaking in a litre of vodka.  I'm using this recipe to make cassis.  I usually just add the blackcurrants to sugar and vodka and leave it for a few months before straining.  But this recipe blitzes the currants first and soaks them in vodka only.  The sugar gets added later.  I'm looking forward to seeing if it makes a difference.

I also brought home this dress that didn't fit mum.  It's a little big for me but I can take it in at the sides easily.  It's very pretty and will be ideal with leggings for work.

And finally, I found a face mask sachet lurking at the bottom of the bathroom cupboard!  I think it was a Christmas present from one of the kids in my class. So I had a wee pamper session :-)

The Teenager is away walking for a few days with his dad so I have the house to myself.  In a few weeks he'll be off to university so I need to get used to just me and Emma rattling round.

2014 Budget - Clothes

I've decided to stick to my £120 per year clothing budget.  I made a few mistakes this year with impulsive buying of fabric but it means I do have lots of fabric to use in 2014.  Since I'm back working I'll be focussing more on work clothes.  So far I've remembered that teaching infants can be messy (paint, glitter etc on clothes!!) so perhaps dry clean only trousers are more suitable for working with the older kids! I think I have enough running/gym stuff to last the year although I may need new trainers at some point. 

A recent visit to my mum (remember she has 2 full wardrobes of clothes!!!) came up with a few goodies to refashion for work.  I especially love the blouse with the cats!!

I just love this green jacket although it's a bit big for me.  I may need to alter it slightly but look how lovely it looks over my bargain Laura Ashley dress :-)

 

Then there's this lovely silk blouse, again a bit loose but with a wee bit of tweaking will be perfect for a warmer day.

 

I still have a lot of clothing to sort out.  I MUST get that done before the end of the year so I'm starting fresh.

Lilac heart jacket

Middle son who now lives in Vienna was home briefly for a holiday.  He had left a lot of stuff behind last year so was sorting what he didn't want/need any more.

This is a white cotton jacket about 4 years old.  It was bit grubby so I washed it then chucked it back in the machine with a packet of French Lavender dye.  It came out a pretty lilac colour.

It was nice but a bit boring.  So I went to my quilting fabric stash and cut out some triangles and used some iron on sticky stuff (loads of brands are available but can't remember which one this is as I've had it a while)

I arranged them in a heart shape on the back of the jacket, inspired by a patchwork pic I'd saved from the net ages ago.

A little pinning and ironing took place, followed by a lot of machine stitching.  That took forever as I had to unpick one side of the lining to get access to make the back lie flat for stitching.  Each wee triangle (19 of them!!) was a bugger to stitch.  And all those thread ends.......

But I'm happy with result.  The zips are nylon so remained white but they're a nice feature against the lilac colour.

And the heart turned out great!  My triangles moved a little during stitching so the final placement is a bit 'neater' than my original plan.

So for a day's work I have a new jacket that didn't cost me any money. I might put it on Etsy to sell.

Refashioned clothes

Remember that plain white shirt? Here it is after dyeing it red.  What I didn't realise was that the thread wasn't cotton so it stayed white!  But it looks good with the white contrasting against the red.

I cut off the big collar and left a small mandarin style one.  I shortened the sleeves.

I removed the buttons hoping to replace them with red ones but I didn't have enough in my stash.  So I had to sew the original ones back on!

Can you tell I'm rather pleased with it? :-)

Remember this shapeless dress?  I unpicked the back darts which were in a weird place and chopped the bottom off.

Summery floral tunic style top!

An M&S cotton wrinkle dress 2 sizes too big, weird colour combination and one of the straps was actually sewn twisted!!  I removed the bottom layer and re jigged the straps.

I would have liked to alter the bodice but it's asymmetrical and one side has a zip.  Don't think I'd wear it in public but good for pottering round the garden.

None of the above cost me a penny as they were all donated by my lovely mum.  Even the red dye was free!

Can't beat free clothes :-)

Spotty Dress Refashion

I finally got round to finishing taking in this dress.  It was 2 sizes too big so it was an easy fix to take in under the arms.

Since I'm a classic pear shape (ie hips much bigger than bust) I didn't need to alter the skirt part.

It had a belt that was rather flimsy so I used it make a matching flower with a big button from my stash following a Youtube tutorial.

It kinda gets lost on the dress so I'll probably wear it on a cardi or jacket so it gets noticed.  If you look closely you can see the Teenager reflected in my sunglasses!!

I love this dress.  It's just a simple cotton one but it's lined and now it fits me perfectly.  Plus it was free :-)

Sorbetto and other free clothes

Inspired by The Great British Sewing Bee I finally got my act together and started stitching again.  Blogland is full of lovely sewing blogs and websites and I've spent a few months procrastinating, collecting stuff and planning on how to expand my wardrobe without spending a lot of cash.  My annual budget is just £120.  So far so good.

 

So, the Sorbetto is a free downloadable pattern from Colette. www.colettepatterns.com Very popular in blogland and had great reviews so I duly downloaded it and made this from a remnant piece of fabric!

 

It's far from perfect but I love it!  In fact I finished stitching it this morning and am now wearing it :-)

I wanted the finish to be of a high standard so I dredged up memories of Home Economics at school (think I'm the last generation where girls were taught sewing and cooking and boys were taught woodwork!!) and did French seams. I thought a contrast bias binding would look good but in retrospect I don't like it.  I made bias binding for the arm holes and did bound seams (kinda by accident as I stitched the bias binding on the right side by mistake!!)

 

I think it looks good from the inside too :-)

 

I need to wait for the teenager to come home and take a decent pic of me wearing it but hope this one shows what it looks like on me.  Next time I'll make it longer (I have a long body!!) and take it in an inch on both sides under the arms as it gaps a little.  It fits nicely across my back.

This is my next project. My mum was having a clear out of her wardrobe so I acquired several black bags of clothes.  This flimsy flowery dress from Asda does nothing for me so I'm going to alter it into a tunic length top.

This is a lovely lined dress. It's got a Target label and cost $49.99.  Mum doesn't remember buying it or how she came to have it!! It's 2 sizes too big for me so I'm going to take it in.

So from the above I'll have 2 tops and a dress and it hasn't cost me a penny!