A rip too far...

Finding a good pair of jeans is a tricky business, I’m sure you know what I mean. But when you find a style that you like, and the fit is comfortable and also flattering it’s like gold dust. I found such a style relatively recently (Marks & Spencer, Harper Cigarette if you were wondering) and I bought a couple of pairs, liking them so much I went to buy some more and there were none to be seen. Panic. They have since come back on the site - at a new price (of course) - and I’ve purchased another pair which I’m equally happy with.

One of the original pairs I bought came complete with wear and tear, turn ups and a ripped knee. Over time the rip on the knee grew, not helped by my foot looking for shortcuts when putting them on. It grew too much for me, and so I decided to tackle it, and after a quick repair, I think it’s worked well - and I think I prefer the rip this way.

This is where I started from:

I bought a pack of iron-on denim patches - there’s patches for denim of every shade imaginable, and because I wanted to patch from the inside I chose the grey denim patch, as that’s the colour I’m least likely to own jeans in! I pinned that on the inside, remembering not to have the sticky side up, as sticking the patch to my iron wouldn’t be good at all.

I realised that with the sticky side up and a hole on the other (right) side, that my newly patched jeans would quickly become a dust and fluff magnet. Also not a good look.

So I hunted through my stash for a small piece of fabric to insert into the hole and make use of the stick from the iron-on patch.

And while this fixed the fluff and dust magnet problem, it didn’t really solve everything. With the patch and material in place the hole wasn’t attached at its edges. And that’s when I had the idea to get out my box of random embroidery threads

I soon realised that the scrap of material I’d chosen must be very me, as the colours in the first section of the embroidery threads matched it pretty well. I contemplated doing something with the peach, green and brown threads but also didn’t want to restrict what I could wear my jeans with. In my head adding colours to the jeans would do this, but luckily in the next section over was a selection of blue threads. These were left over from some cross stitch pictures which I made many years ago, and which I wish I still had. Sadly I think I must have thrown those out a while back, as even with all the sorting out I’ve been doing I haven’t found them yet.

But as you can tell I have strong memories of those four pictures - they were a labour of self love - and so I quickly knew that I would use the variegated blue thread to secure the loose denim.

I decided on a few rows of simple running stitch to secure the fabric decoratively, and I’m really pleased how it turned out. It’s a pretty way of extending the life of these jeans, which apart from a larger than intended rip are perfectly fine.

Next time, I may even be braver!

Repurposing an empty or two

For a while now we’ve been members of the Craft Gin Club, a subscription service which provides a bottle of gin, mixers and nibbles every month. It means we have a fair few bottles of gin, with several on the go at once. But here’s the thing, they’re all generally really pretty bottles and so I was keen to find a way to repurpose them.

I’d seen lights in bottles, and how pretty they were and I bought a box or two much earlier in the summer. They’re easy to fit and use, but that wasn’t my concern. My concern was the slugs and snails slithering over the labels and leaving a trail of destruction. And so, I’ve tried a layer of PVA Glue over them and I’m hoping that will protect the labels for at least a little while.

It’s only now though, that the warmer weather is making a brief return that I’ve been able to try them out. And I’m really pleased with how they’ve worked out, and how much light they give out. Don’t they look great?

I’ve used them in groups of three, some on the table but also on the edge of the grass and on the patio. I never expected them to turn out quite so well.

What do you think?

The Upcycled Garden

This is the last of the garden room sets from this year’s Ideal Home Show, and I’ve saved my favourite until last. And in true me-style, I had quite a good chat with Max McMurdo who was hanging around the garden he created trying to eat his lunch and have a conversation with someone who thought he looked familiar, but thought nothing more of it. Until I actually read the leaflet I picked up and realised who I’d been chatting to over the upcycled pallet.

It is a particularly good use of pallets, and one I wished I’d thought of when in my first house dad and I put up a front fence made of pallets. Just adding an extra plank to keep those pots in, would have added some interest. I was clearly way ahead of my time, although looking back I think I’d have had to nail the pots in as a plant that was on my open porch, which took two people to lift disappeared one day. It’s not actually the sort of thing you can phone the police for is it?

“Yes, hello Officer, yes my five foot money plant, that’s extremely heavy is missing.”

“Where did I leave it? Well on my doorstep, it’s too heavy to move you see.”

But anyway I digress, although that is how and when I got my yucca plant, which is still going strong despite a small accident with MOH falling onto it recently. These doors too reminded me of the “shed-that-dad-built” which I shared on here a couple of years ago. That post is worth a look for the old-fashioned photos alone.

Back to my chat with Max. It was the real Max I got to speak to, not the statuesque one that perched on yet another pallet. Max is a designer and upcycler and has gone “back to his roots” according to the leaflet with this Land Rover inspired garden, reusing ideas from his book “Upcycling Outdoors”. The leaflet goes on to say that upcycling items has “previously been associated with items within the home” but that this garden shows what you can do with your outside space. I’d just like to say, pop back to the post with the “shed-that-dad-built” there was much upcycling going on there, mostly through quirkiness and need, rather than driven by a reuse mantra, but it was the early nineties…

It’s true though that suitcase side tables are more often used indoors, but they do make a lovely planter too.

That old tool trolley isn’t what it seems either - it’s a barbeque of course. And while storage is always important everywhere, so is having a functional and attractive dining area. Some planks laid across a wooden frame have easily sorted that - that’s definitely something to remember and reuse at some point.

You didn’t believe me when I said it was a barbeque did you? Here you go…

It was definitely my favourite garden, and while the planting is quite subtle, it’s there thought, and as we know all good gardens are based on a good structure.

What do you think? For me, there’s memories, inspiration and so many things to see in each and every one of these photos. I’m only sorry there wasn’t more time to enjoy the space and take full advantage of the hospitality laid on!