Repurposing a cycling top

Over the winter MOH spent some time creating a workout space in the garage, as let’s face it not many of us put our cars in there these days and there’s no longer a gym or such like on our doorstep. There’s still space for all our junk (though there’s getting less and less of that as we continue to sort through our moving boxes), the usual paraphernalia and my greenhouse station, so all’s good.

We’ve spent the summer using the space and it’s been really good to have - I already know we’ll appreciate it even more in the winter months - but it is kind of, well functional. There’s some finishing touches that I want to add and I’m hoping to get to more of those soon.

We’ve also finally had our large inbuilt wardrobes kitted out so we can make the most of the space we have (more on those another day!) and so we’ve been sorting through our clothes; some have headed to the charity shop and others are for sale on eBay and Vinted (with many more to list!) and some I’ve kept to reuse. One of MOH’s first cycling tops was in the reuse pile, along with one of his now holey Superdry t-shirts.

In our workout space we knew that storage was going to be key, and we’ve hooks of all shapes and sizes to add to the walls (when we decide where things need to go) but sometimes you just want to shove stuff out of sight don’t you? And away from the spiders (or as much as we can, anyway).

And so the idea for a drawstring bag was born.

Having looked for an easy tutorial on YouTube I set about creating the front and backs using the purple t-shirt as lining. I wanted to keep the cycling top details, so cut off the Altura logos from the parts I wasn’t using and supplemented these with the elastic waistband of some cycling shorts which were heading for the bin.

Rather than start by sewing the bag together, my first job was to piece the logos and elastic to add detail to the front and back of the bag, which I’d used the main body of the cycling top for. It was only then that I could actually make the bag, and it turned out pretty well.

THE FRONT, COMPLETE WITH THE CYCLING TOP ZIP IN ITS ORIGINAL PLACE

I kept it simple and kept the zip from the front of the cycling top, though at one point my sewing machine grumbled about that. The front has an additional logo (at right angles) and some of the elastic with poppers on the front, as well as the curved lower edge of the back, complete with the reflective strip.

The back, which is the back of the cycling top has another logo added across the back, and thinking ahead to spider-proof this (you can never be too careful) on this side the waist of the cycling shorts was used to seal the pockets.

AND THE BACK, THE THREE REAR POCKETS HAVE BEEN SEALED WITH THE ELASTIC TRIM

The yellow and white cord I’d kept from carrier bags - you know the duffle bag type - which were no longer used (and in fact had already been recycled long before we moved).

I’d planned to make myself a bag along the same lines, but was undecided about which of my netball kits to use. In the end I found my Adidas gym bag which I used to take to netball matches - I know this because it still had the eight safety pins pinned into in for pinning on those velcro bibs to non-velcro-ed tops - something I’d completely forgotten about!

So I’m reusing this one as a starting point, though I’ve a feeling that turning old sports kit into drawstring bags could become a bit of thing - and I’m not sad about that at all!

Sunflower watch: sowing seeds into Wool Pots

I was given a free sample of these Wool Pots - an alternative to plastic plant pots - to try for myself, and so I’m marking this post as an ad, as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

It’s been a fair while since I’ve sown some seeds, and far too long really. There’s been a number of reasons why I haven’t, but one of the big factors was the lack of success the last time I tried - well, not with the seeds, but with the actual growing on. That was a lot to do with the lack of light in our old garden given the tree canopy, which because of lockdown was way behind its usual pollarding schedule.

And then we decided to put our house on the market, and our priorities were to sell the house, and naively I thought it would be relatively quick, so I wanted to avoid moving more plants than we needed to - and no, I wasn’t planning on leaving them for the new owners! All in all moving house ran over two growing seasons, and so when we arrived here in July planting seeds couldn’t have been further from my mind.

I don’t have a greenhouse here (yet), so it’s not ideal for sowing seeds but I was keen to get growing again. Dad also gave me some seeds for a multi-headed sunflower and so with seeds, wool pots and the will to get sowing, what could go wrong?

And yes, the wool pots are well named - they are made of wool, and are pots!

They are knitted from washed wool… and while knitting plant pots sounds strange but the makers assure that Wool Pots are strong, naturally biodegradable, environmentally friendly and plants love them. The company aims to raise the awareness of the plastic problem in horticulture and let people know there is an alternative, and show them a solution. Wool pots are also proud members of the Campaign for Wool and are thrilled to be helping farmers find a new market for their wool.

Rather than bring the seeds indoors, which is an obvious way of giving them some heat, I kept them in the garage opting to use my heated propagator, and bring them out into the sun during the day, which was a fair bit of faffing but it did result in a majority germination - with five out of eight pots producing seedlings, though some were slower to germinate than others.

As the days went on, the seedlings started to grow their true leaves, not just the seedling leaves. It’s worth noting that the wool pots should have space between them to prevent the roots merging into each other - the space enables ‘air pruning’ and will make it easier to plant them on when the time comes.

But my biggest concern now that they’d germinated was when to leave them outside, but thankfully the weather decided to improve to help with that. With the seedlings nestled down in one of my currently half-empty pots, and in a more sheltered part of the garden I braved it, and they all survived!

In fact they’re all doing really well, with more leaves developing and getting taller too. Now instead of bringing them out of and into the garage each day, I’m checking that they’re not growing into each other - and so far so good.

I’m sure it won’t be long before I need to work out where to plant them so that they can grow to their full potential. And the best bit, is you can pot on the whole wool pot - I’ll share how I get on when the time comes.

* With thanks to Wool Pots for providing a sample of their innovative project for me to try.

Bagels, cream cheese & jam

Back in the day when MOH and I got together, and when we were ‘commuting’ between our respective houses one of MOH’s specialities was a bagel, cream cheese and blueberry jam. Something I’d not had before, but it was quite a hit. Initially this became a staple weekend breakfast, but over the years somehow it’s fallen off our radar, and I’m not really sure why.

Sometimes though life reminds you of these things, and circumstances even align. That’s exactly happened last week and resulted in a throwback breakfast, and very tasty it was too.

MOH had a planned trip to London, and as he would when we lived in Greenwich he stopped off at Brick Lane for some bagels. They really are the best, and I’ve an inkling that it was when we tasted these bagels (or beigels) that the shop bought bagels fell out of favour - there really is no comparison, trust me.

While MOH was in town I tested out my new preserving pan with the blackberries we picked from the local hedgerow following a recipe I’d tried before. I’m quite partial to a blackberry jam it seems, and had written about two on here before. This time I opted for the blackberry and lime jam, which simply adds lime zest to the jam mixture.

We picked about half a kilo of blackberries and that turned into two jars of jam - as you can see one’s a little larger than a usual sized jam jar, and there was also enough to fill a ramekin which we’d keep in the fridge and use immediately.

MY HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY & LIME JAM PICTURED ON ONE OF MY NEWEST SUSTAINABLE ‘KITCHEN TOWELS’ MADE FROM MY WONKIEST PATCHWORK BLOCKS AND OLD TOWELS SEWN TOGETHER. PRETTY AND PRETTY USEFUL TOO!

So with MOH bringing home the bagels, and my afternoon jam making - all I needed was some cream cheese, which fortuitously I had in the fridge. (It’s a great fridge standby and as well as on bagels, it’s also good for pasta and to make a quick cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese or lasagne - and it usually has a long ‘use by’ date too).

So Brick Lane bagels, cream cheese and homemade blackberry and lime jam (not the blueberry jam we used to have, but close enough) and what a breakfast it was. The jam even solicited unprompted praise from MOH, so a result!

Isn’t it great when circumstances align?