Advance copy of our new book arrives!

The first advance copy of Make it and Mend it, our new book, arrived today.

The book is already pre-selling on Amazon in both UK and USA as well as other online bookstores, including Waterstones and Blackwells. It will be in the shops around about October - just in time for you all to buy it for Christmas gifts! - or add it to your wish list.

The illustrations are beautiful - thank you to the lovely photographer Sian Irvine.

Here are a couple of spreads - snapped on my kitchen table - shown here are Stained glass biscuits and how to make a cake stand from old plates - both of these were Hilary's creations.

Clare F

Cake Glorious cake

MIAMI team meeting at Clare O's today and we've been admiring the birthday cake she's made for her god daughter's Hollywood style birthday party.

It's based on Nigella's Malteser cake and features Maltesers transformed into glitter balls. Looks scrummy - and in order to prevent us from stealing it, Clare has even made a jam and cream sponge for us to have. Can't wait

Clare F

For loads of cake baking recipes check out the main site

We've finished the shoots for our new book

It's been harder work than we thought - so many things to make and all the step-by-steps to be done, but we're pleased to say "It's a wrap folks!"

The last of our total 6 days of still photography was on location down in Dorset, after 3 days at Hilary's and 2 day's at mine (Clare F). We're really excited about the book, although publication date still seems a long way away - not till October. Sian the photographer and her assistant Nick have done us proud and we're sure you're going to agree when the book's published.

In case you didn't know what the format is - it's (very imaginatively!) called Make it and Mend it and is full of projects for the whole year season by season - including a section on special occasions such as Easter and Mother's Day. All kinds of things for you to make and mend are included, from sewing a quilt from old sweatshirts to making chocolate truffles.

We'd expected the shooting was going to be a doddle - as most of the projects were ones we had already featured on the site - but most of them had to be tweaked and twiddled and generally re-made from scratch so we've been very busy bees.

Watch this space for more news.

Clare F

Our first shoot

Hilary and I spent yesterday with the team from our publishers doing the first of several shoots for our new book, Make it and Mend it, which comes out in October.

We did it at Hilary's place, dashing between the greenhouse and summer house and freezing to death out in the snow. The team - Pru from the publishers, photographer Sian and her assistant Nick, were marvellous and very tolerant of the freezing cold weather. We did a few indoor shots but mostly decided to brave the elements.

As a point and clicker, I found it fascinating seeing all the care that goes into each shot, all the measurements and tests.

The next shoot is at my place and we'll be doing a day on cooking and a day on sewing stuff.

We're almost finished writing the final manuscript - due at the publishers next week. So exciting!

Clare Flynn

We're writing a book

Our Make it and Mend it book will be coming out next September. Yee-ha! It seems a long way away but there's so much to do. We're all really excited and we're going to be very busy between now and then getting everything ready and meeting our publisher's deadlines - as well as carrying on with 'business as usual'.

We're very lucky to be working with a fabulous publishing team at FW Media.We had the kick off planning meeting yesterday - and planned the whole book page by page. It's giving us a fascinating insight into how publishers work.

Everyone in the MIAMI team is involved. We  have copy to write ready for the first photo shoot not to mention getting lots of making and mending projects ready. "Right - that's enough slacking - get on with it!" (Ed)

Knit yourself a holiday

Yes, I know it seems like we've gone knitting mad on the blog recently but we just wanted to mention this knitting competition  from the sunny Channel Island of Guernsey.

Everybody's heard of the Guernsey sweater. Designed originally to keep sailors warm they've enjoyed wide fashion status over the years (and they still look rather cool with jeans and espadrilles).

In days gone by each family on the island would have its own unique pattern that was passed down through the generations by word of mouth. But the Second World War and evacuation meant that many of these oral histories began to die out.

The competition is encouraging knitters to... re-interpret the original garment, how the family patterns might have looked, or would look today if the tradition had continued and evolved.

The winner will receive an trip for two to Guernsey. The winning design will also be published in a leading UK knitting magazine.

To maintain the Guernsey tradition competition entries should try and incorporate the following features in their designs, drawings or patterns:
• inclusion of the traditional box shape
• British [or Guernsey] wool - four or five ply
• pattern designs for size 10-12.

Designs can be uploaded to the Visit Guernsey facebook page

Guernseys are made of single colour worsted yarn, usually four or five ply, tightly knit using fine needles [as small as size 13 or 14].

The sweater was originally knitted in the round, with a purl stitch to mark the side seam. Patterns are made up of simple knit/ purl combinations, the most elaborate of which would have covered the top half of the body and arms.

Patterns on Tudor knitted stockings produced in Guernsey had names such as Turk’s Head, and Peacock’s Tail, which may have also been used on jumper designs. Jumpers have a boxy shape which means that they can be worn both ways; front and back (originally to prolong life-span).

Other common features include a funnel neck, triangular inserts under the arms and at the neck edge, and side splits in the hem for ease of movement.

Get your needles out.

Come to Devon and make your own homemade Christmas

We've decided to emerge from  MIAMI Towers and run a real live event - and we hope you can come along and join us!

The lovely people at the beautiful Rill Estate in Devon have invited us to run a couple of one day workshops there.

We 're going to do live work sessions on card-making, fabulous show-stopping Christmas table dressings, gorgeous home-made Christmas decorations as well as gift ideas and wrapping.

You'll get all the materials provided, plus lunch and teas and coffees, the chance to meet the MIAMI team and other like-minded people in a convivial atmosphere and beautiful setting.

Who needs to be a couch potato and sit at home watching Kirstie Allsopp  pretend to make her homemade Christmas when you can do it for real?

What are you waiting for? We have 2 days available - Monday 15th or Tuesday 16th November.

>> Find out more here

A first crack at making salt dough decorations

Until this year I hadn't even heard of salt dough decorations  but, inspired by my Make it and Mend it colleague Hilary, I decided to have a try at making some. What a satisfying way to spend a morning it was too - and it got me right into the Christmas spirit.

Hilary's step by step instructions are on our website here

My efforts were not as finessed as Hilary's but I am quite proud of them. I decided to stick with 2 basic colours - a deep rose and a cobalt blue - as I have lights on my tree in those colours - and it made a change from my usual shop-bought uniform gold decorations. I've kept some of these on the tree but the new salt dough ones now stand out, looking vibrant and more energetic.

As I didn't have any cookie cutters to hand, I used a glass jar to make circles and the base of a plastic lemon squeezer to make a star indentation, then did the rest free-style, deciding to abandon any attempts at perfect literal shapes. I used acrylic paint and added some bits of mirror glass and some coloured glass beads. I made some small indentations - sometimes in a heart shape, sometimes random and filled these in with gold paint.

Hilary warned in her article about making the hole for the ribbon big enough. I used a metal skewer and wiggled it about a bit to make the hole larger but I had to use a sewing needle to feed the thread through a couple of them as the holes were too small after baking - there's no give in them at all once they are baked hard.

I finished off my decorations with some lacquer spray and a light sprinkling of glitter. I think they look fabulous - and the best thing is that every one is different. Definitely worth having a go. Stick the radio on and get stuck in - there's still plenty of time!

Has drinking replaced hobbies?

I was talking to a friend who's living in Manila and he was telling me that the drinking culture there is even more dramatic than in the UK. Incredibly cheap "drink as much as you can before 9pm" offers abound and all everyone seems to do is hit the bars and drink themselves silly.

I'd just been telling him about what we're trying to do with Make it and Mend it and how our intent is not just to help people combat recession and live more thriftily, but to share and encourage the more positive psychological aspects of making stuff and mending it (see our blog post below on the difference between making and mending and making do and mending )

He then pointed out that the growth in drinking over recent years has been accompanied by a decline in hobbies. It's almost as though drinking has become the new hobby for millions of people (and I'm not ruling myself out !). That hadn't occurred to me before, but I think he has a point.

Once upon a time everyone had hobbies and it was a normal thing to ask "What are your hobbies?", when you met someone rather than "What do you do?". Then it became a bit of a no-no as an expression, conjuring up visions of saddos with no mates bent over an Airfix kit and a stamp collection - or dashing off to Girl Guides to earn a badge in brass rubbing.

But why did we get so cynical about hobbies? Were they swept aside in Thatcher's Britain with the 80's emphasis on career and money? Indeed the received wisdom used to be not to put too much on the interest section of your CV in case a prospective employer might wonder whether you were reluctant to offer less than your whole soul to their company. On the other hand, going out and getting bladdered after a long day's cutting and thrusting on the corporate battlefield was seen as suitably macho, especially in the City.

At the other end of the economic scale, the growing underclass and disaffected leave school with nothing much more than an endless capacity for boredom and no means of sating it except through a bottle or even a needle.

The recent increase in the uptake of crafts such as knitting and the burgeoning passion for vegetable growing have been heralded as reactions to recession. That may be true but maybe they are also signs of a reawakening of interest in hobbies for their own sake and hopefully an erosion of the cynicism about them and about clubs and societies. The Scouts and Brownies are supposed to be on the up, as is the Women's Institute. I've never been one for joining things myself - but I certainly don't feel cynical and sneery about those who do - even though I'm ashamed to say I once used to be!

Maybe if more of us had hobbies we wouldn't all feel we had to drink so much? If our kids did too it might set them on a path to a more interesting and fulfilling life. What do you think?

Clare F

Make do and Mend

Well this week things have really taken off on the thrifty living front.

We had The Observer this weekend with an extract from the fabulously useful Mend It! 400 Easy Repairs by Sian Berry.

Then this morning, BBC Radio 4's Today programme featured the soon-to-be-published modern version of Make Do and Mend from John Lewis and asked listeners to share their own ideas for thrifty living. Here at Make it and Mend it Towers we've risen to the challenge and have been busy on Twitter, tweeting our own tips and suggestions in response. Here's one of our tweets:

r4today RT @makeitandmendit: clean dark wood floors with water that five tea bags have been soaked in. Polishes beautifully and darkens scuff marks

It seems every time we open a magazine, a newspaper or turn on the TV or the radio there's something about living more frugally and thriftily. It definitely seems we've reached a tipping point in the public consciousness.

All of this is great, but there's a much more positive side to making and mending. You may start off down this path because you're short of a bob or two but most people find they actually like it! It's not so much about sacrifice, compromise or "making do" but more about the sense of achievement and self-efficacy that comes from making your own stuff rather than flashing a credit card.

When the recession eventually ends, you may have more cash in your pocket and security in your job, but we're sure once you've tried your hand at making and mending you'll find it becomes pretty addictive!
Clare Flynn

Making rosehip syrup for the first time

I posted a wartime recipe for rosehip syrup on the MIAMI website and as I am the proud owner of a large rambling rose that every year is laden with hips, I decided I had to follow my own advice and give making rosehip syrup a go.

This time last year, my Friend Clare O'Brien stood in my garden and said "What fantastic rosehips - you must make some rosehip syrup!". I looked at her scornfully and replied "If Shirley Conran said life's too short to stuff a mushroom, then it's certainly too short for making rosehip syrup!" And here I am a year later eating my words.

Putting aside childhood memories of being given rosehip syrup on a spoon (it was always much nicer than syrup of figs, cod liver oil or liquid paraffin (vomit!) which were the other occasional remedies that tortured my childhood days) I decided to have a go today. I've been told it's great added to a glass of chilled white wine, like a Kir, as a refreshing cordial or poured onto some ice cream - that has to make it worth a try.

I spent the best part of half an hour up a stepladder, getting the hips down from the rose tree. I trimmed each hip, removing the hairy beards. I later realised I didn't need to do this as the whole mixture gets strained several times during the cooking process. It was nonetheless strangely satisfying. I was accompanied by a rather nice selection of classical piano music as I worked.

My kitchen now smells absolutely gorgeous - the strained liquid is bubbling away in the background as I write this.

My top tips for other would-be rose-hippers

1. I didn't wholly rely on the wartime recipe but flipped between this and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's from the Guardian - which was very similar. I followed the wartime quantities but allowed the boiled mixture to stand for HFW's recommended half hour rather than the 10 minutes suggested by the old Ministry of Food
2. I couldn't manage to get any muslin or jelly bags locally - but I found a pair of tights was more than adequate to the task! TOP TIP!
3. Last but not least - please learn from me! I am almost done and have just realised I have no small bottles to decant the syrup into. Large ones are not a good idea as the mixture only lasts a short time once opened. Doh!

Clare Flynn

Take a leaf out of this superhero’s book!

You may have noticed already, but we love guerrilla gardeners and this one is no exception.

Covered in green foliage and resembling something from a Sci Fi movie, the self-styled Human Shrub, first emerged earlier this year when he protested againstColchester council’s plan to turf over the rose beds as a means of saving money. His protests were successful and the council reversed its decision to tear out and grass over one in five roadside flowerbeds in Colchester.

Since then the Human Shrub spends his free time replacing weeds with flowers to transform dormant plant containers, but don’t worry this doesn’t affect his family life as Colchester’s very own superhero doesn’t work alone, he brings his wife to work as well.

The husband and wife duo struck again this weekend when they organised a party of volunteer gardeners to descend on a scruffy patch of land to spruce up it up by weeding and planting donated shrubs and flowers.

Brilliant stuff!

>> Fancy helping the Human Shrub? To find out more join him on Facebook

Tell us about your own guerilla gardening plans on the Make it and Mend it Forum

Cash in the Attic (and Twitter too)

Just read about the soon to be opened Townhouse Hotel in Maastricht Holland.

The people running this certainly have a creative approach (and a canny knack for publicity). As well as offering inhouse communications via Twitter, they have actually furnished the hotel make it and mend it style.

How so?

They put out a request to their neighbours and fellow townsfolk to sell them antique furniture and nick-nacks to furnish the new hotel. They wanted chairs, tables, ceramics, art, and all mannner of 'stuff' including boardgames. The underlying concept for the place is "style, sex and soup" (stijl, sexen, soupe) meaning design, attraction and authenticity.

As a result, they now have a hotel kitted out nostalgically in interesting antiques and curios at a fraction of the price and effort it would have taken otherwise, as well as pre-publicising the hotel into the bargain.

As for the townsfolk, they've got their old unwanted gear off their hands, knowing that it will get years of good use, enjoyed by the guests - and they'll have made a bit of cash into the bargain. Pretty damn good, eh?

>> The hotel website - they're taking bookings
>> The hotel Twitter page - they post frequent videos and photos from their Flickr stream of exciting things such as the installation of the broadband cables and the wiring of the ceilings!

Calling all Knitters and would be knitters

Join Make it and Mend it's Twitter / Knitter fest and celebrate World Wide Knit in Public day!
Kick off Thursday 4.00pm (GMT)
Make it and Mend it are holding an Twitter/Knitter fest for anybody who is interested in knitting. It is a chance to come together and meet other like minded tweeters to share ideas and inspiration.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a complete novice, a passionate aficionado, or even a wool producer – all are welcome to join us for 2 hours of unadulterated knitting tweets.
What is WWKIP?
For those of you who may have missed the massed hoards of knitters down on the South Bank in London on Saturday. This weekend was World Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP).
Started in 2005 by Danielle Landes, WWKIP Day began as a way for knitters to come together and enjoy each other’s company. For many, knitting can be a very solitary experience and Landes decided to rectify this by encouraging people to grab their knitting, get out of their houses and go to a local event where people can meet other like minded people.

WWKiP Day is unique, in that it's the largest knitter-run event in the world. Each local event is put together by a volunteer or a group of volunteers. They each organize an event because they want to, not because they have to.

WWKIP is about showing the general public that ‘not only grannies knit!’. Knitting crosses all ages, classes, cultures and getting together to knit is also about sharing all that knowledge and inspiring each other.

This year the event runs over two weekends. Last weekend was the first and 20th/21st June is the second weekend. So you still have time to grab your needles and join in.

Landes says “WWKiP Day is really about showing the general public that knitting can be a community activity in a very distinct way. In some places there are many different knitting groups that never interact with each other, on WWKiP Day they come together in one place, making them hard to miss.”

Here at Make it and Mend it, we love this idea and have decided it is time to bring it into the digital age. Coming together to share our knitting, doesn’t have to just be a physical coming together, it can be a virtual coming together as well. Everyday our Twitter followers come together to share thoughts, ideas and experiences, for 2 hours on Thursday we want you to join us in our twitter/knitter fest and bring WWKIP online.

“Better living through stitching together”

Is it really time to reach for Designer Labels again?

In a recent issue of the Daily Mail, Naomi Greenaway wrote “Last Thursday, just as I was leaving the house for a business appointment, my cleaner arrived - wearing exactly the same dress as I was. A £15 H&M special. She was about to scrub the loo. I was heading off to do an interview.”
Her headline asked “When you find your cleaner wearing the same outfit as you, isn't it time to reach for designer labels again?”

Here at Make it and Mend it, we believe the answer to that is NO! Don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that we're anti designer clothing. Far from it. We just believe that there is a time and a place for it. Apart from a cringeworthy display of snobbery, Naomi is encouraging people to spend money that they don’t have. We're in the midst of a recession and many people are out of work and struggling to pay their mortgages and household bills, so clothes are unfortunately way down the list of priorities for most people.

To give her credit, Naomi does apologise for sounding like a snob, but, she argues “I'm done with fashion communism. I don't want to live in a world where everyone wears the same cut-price outfit like Chinese peasants in Chairman Mao jackets.”

Which I think most of us would agree with. We like to be individual, but she does rather destroy this argument when she goes on to say:
“But now everyone from your granny to your cleaner is wearing it, too - and I'd rather go out naked, thanks”.

Not only is she being ageist, classist, but later in the article fattist as well:
“We like our clothes to reflect who we are, but when they're also a reflection of the fat woman on the train, the annoying teenager and the cleaner, it creates an uncomfortable dissonance.”

Putting the debate about snobbery aside, within this diatribe there were a couple grains of importance and truth – she does make a fair point about cheap clothing not being cheap when we buy in the ridiculous bulk that some people do, but I think the most important point is - do we all have to look the same?

Naomi claims that “Unlike good old-fashioned snobbery, where subtlety is key, this inverse snobbery about what you pay for clothes and shoes is constantly rubbed in our faces. It's all about buying cheap and bragging about it. That's all very well, but as thousands of other women and I are discovering, it means running into scores of women dressed the same as you.”

It seems she fears that we are all becoming clones. She maintains the only answer to this is to designer-shop our way out of this, but is this answer? Ok you may be getting a better quality of clothing, but you'll still find others wearing the same as you. You will just become a better 'class' of clone.

We firmly believe that this is not the only answer. There are many ways of maintaining an individual style without becoming a clone.

With a little thought, creativity and possibly the use of a needle, you can create and adapt an amazing individually styled wardrobe. It is not about how much you spend, it is about how you wear it and how you put it together. Gok Wan’s programme on Channel 4 demonstrates this brilliantly. Gok is the champion of the high street chic. But he takes a basic item and fashions it into something that looks original and fabulously expensive; week after week winning the catwalk vote against designer labels at ten times the price.

And people are wising up to this. Sales of sewing machines are rising rapidly. Sewing courses are springing up all over the country. There really is no need to go out looking like a clone or to spend your month’s mortgage on a pair of shoes.

Naomi's article suggests that a desire to go designer shopping is more about a need to be noticed than buying quality.

“Research shows that when women shop, it is not necessarily related to how much money they have to spend but what is going on in their minds,” says KarenPine. Author of Sheconomics . She claims that people shop “to cheer themselves up, when their boyfriends have dumped them, when they are not getting on with their husbands, when they've had a bad day. The thinking is ‘I work damned hard, I deserve a reward'.”

Unfortunately it is these emotional triggers that are exploited to sell unsuitable products that waste our money.

Shopping for unnecessary products taps into our need to be validated by others.
“Ever since I bought the Choo beauties a few months ago, I'd been waiting for the perfect moment to show them off - and relishing the purrs of approval they were bound to garner from my female friends” says Naomi Greenaway.

This says more about her possible lack of self-esteem than it does about the shoes themselves. It is about the Jimmy Choos enabling her to become the envy of her friend.

But horror of horrors:
“ ..when I wore them at dinner last week, no one noticed them, they were so bowled over by my other friend's lumps of canvas and cork which cost less than a bottle of wine.”

Sadly this is something we have all experienced – being upstaged by our friends. Let’s face it. How many of us get to be the princess in the school play? But what it does highlight is that even spending a fortune on a pair of shoes does not mark us out from the crowd, or make us feel ‘different’. We don’t need to spend money to feel good about ourselves.

Pine goes on to say in her book “It soon became obvious to me that most women's financial problems were either the result of, or complicated by, their underlying attitude to money, alongside a variety of personal issues or self-limiting beliefs”.

It's unfortunate that the term “retail therapy” has become common parlance and is frequently used by TV and women's magazines in an upbeat, even sisterly way to make us feel it's ok to carry on shopping, without any thought to paying the bills and what other psychological issues we might be trying to cover up.

It's time we started to redress the balance and highlight the fact that we don’t need to continually spend vast amounts of money on our wardrobes. The occasional splurge is great and picking a up a designer bargain is sheer heaven, but in between times, it should be more about how you wear your clothes rather than how much you spend. Creating something out of nothing and an individual style will give you a far bigger and a longer lasting boost to your ego than a trip to Prada ever will. Especially as there is no nasty after taste when the bill comes in.

My final response to Naomi is that she should think about what is motivating her in her desire to be different and why she feels that she has to spend so much money to validate her existence. Making, styling and altering would make her feel much better about herself than the quick fix shopping trip. My advice, girls, would be - Save the money on the Jimmy Choos and buy a sewing machine!
(Hilary)

"Some enchanting sandals!" - one for the Vintage fans

“These Enchanting Sandals are simply made from old stockings and scraps of silk”

Here at Make it and Mend it, there’s nothing we like better than a bit of creative upcycling and these slippers are absolute corkers! Just right for the vintage fashion fan.

I came across them whilst leafing through some old knitting books that belonged to my grandmother. This cutting from a newspaper was slipped inside the pages and has complete instructions for making a pair of sandals from old silk stockings. Admittedly getting silk stockings is a bit of an issue these days, but I am sure that with a little creativity you could find a reasonable substitute and you could make a great pair of sandals. In fact we will offer a prize for the first person to make a pair and send us the photos. Very much in the wartime "make do and mend" manner.

Instructions – as per 1940s
"These simply-made slippers are as pretty as any we’ve seen. The comfortable built up soles are made of plaited silk stockings and are wonderfully long wearing.

You will need a pair of cork or felt ‘socks’ for the soles [presumably in-soles would do?], some pretty scraps of silk or cotton for the tops – just under ¼ yard of 36 inch material [hope the metric police won't arrest us for using inches!] – and twelve old silk stockings for each slipper. If you have too few yourself perhaps you can beg some from friends!

Plait the stocking together in threes. Only plait the silk leg parts together and cut off the lisle welts and feet. You will need four of these plaits for each slipper. Stitch them together to make one long plait.

Lay the plait, narrow side down, on the sock sole, and secure the plait to outer edge of the sole all round with double oversewing, then coil the plait round and round inside this outer line, until the sole is covered, catching the coils together here and there with matching strong silk.

Cut the strip of fabric for the heel, 17 inches long and 3 inches wide. Make a small dart in the centre of one long edge, ¼ inch wide and 2½ inches long, when sew to shape it for heel. Roll all the edges of the strip and finish with double oversewing. Oversew central part of the long undarted edge round heel part of sole, leaving ends to tie.

For toe sections, cut two strips of material each 6 ½ inches by 3 inches, and roll over all edges and double oversew. Then oversew on 3 inch end of each strip to side of sole, to tie over toes.”

Quiz: What kind of MP would you make?

1) Your moat needs cleaning - do you
a) Grab those waders and your Marigolds and get stuck in?
b) Ask your gardener to do it for you?
c) Get the taxpayer to pay for it?
d) What do you mean moat ? You haven't got a moat? Doesn't everybody have one?

2) You need a new duck house - do you
a) Pull apart that old Chippendale chest of drawers and refashion it into a chateau for the canards?
b) Pay your local carpenter to knock one up?
c) Get the taxpayer to buy you one?
d) What do you mean you don't have any ducks?

3) Your servant’s quarters need renovating
a) Buy some Farrow and Ball paint and do it yourself
b) Call in the local builder to refurbish them
c) Get the tax payer to employ a team of architects and designers to do it for you
d) What do you mean you don’t have servants? Who answers your door for you?

4) Your second home needs refurbishing – do you
a) Move into your 1st or 3rd home whilst decorating yourself ?
b) Call in Kirstie Allsop to find some lovely ladies to do it for you ?
c) Get a team of designers and decorators to refurbish it for you and then flip your house?
d) What do you mean you only have one house?

5) Your neighbours are very noisy and you need some soundproofing – do you
a) Collect recycled egg boxes from your Farm and glue them to the wall of the house?
b) Telephone the police and demand an ASBO for your neighbours?
c) Get the taxpayer to employ somebody to sound proof your room?
d) Buy a set of earplugs and bottle of whisky?

6) You have a neighbour dispute and you need to demarcate your land – do you
a) Go to your local nursery to buy a lorry load of fence posts and put them in yourself
b) Get the local landscapers to put some up some fencing
c) Get the taxpayer to buy some for you
d) It’s not a problem - your window box doesn’t need fencing

7) You need to present a wreath at a memorial service – do you
a) Whip around your garden and make one?
b) Go to your local florist to buy one?
c) Get the tax payer to buy one worth £500?
d) Dig out your Christmas one and take off the robins and mistletoe?


8) You want some mock Tudor beams on your house – do you
a) Cut up your ancient Tudor sideboard and attach the bits to the wall?
b) Get your local builder to make you some?
c) Get the taxpayer to employ a company to attach some for you?
d) 'Ang about! Mock Tudor beams'd look a bit poncey on a tower block!

Mostly A – you obviously have a bit of cash, but you keep your feet on the ground. You are a practical make it and mender and are happy to have a go at repairing things yourself. But you need to work at getting people to do things for you if you really want to be an MP.

Mostly B – You are working hard on your persona and have good potential to reach Parliament. You are happy to get people to do things for you, but you are a little too sensible with the coffers. You need to work on wasting money a little more.

Mostly C – Well done you are true MP. You lack a grasp of reality which does you proud. You believe your constituents love you and those that don’t are just jealous of your big house that looks like Balmoral.

Mostly D – I am sorry to say, but you will never make an MP – you are obviously far too much of a man or woman of the people to ever be taken seriously in Westminster.

When giving to charity is not really giving

I know we at Make it and Mend it have a bit of a tendency to rant about television presenters - but this time our rant is in support of one - Mary Portas. Mary, the retail wizard behind Harvey Nics and the scourge and salvation of small clothing retailers, has turned her attention to charity shops in her latest programme, 'Mary Queen of Charity Shops'.

All you vintage fashion lovers don't have to be sold on the merits of charity shops and many of us get a bit of a warm glow when we take a bagful of goodies round to our local store after a therapeutic declutter session.

However the first of Mary's programmes, broadcast this week, was a revelation. Behind the scenes in a typical store, the army of (usually elderly) helpers has to sort through indescribably horrendous crap to find anything worth selling. People drop off black bin bags with stuff that you would want on the end of a ten foot barge pole in order to confine to a bonfire. Used sanitary towels, nappies, dirty knickers, dead mice, filthy old damaged trainers, smelly socks are all in a day's work for the beleagured charity volunteer to sift through. The percentage of goods able to be put on display in a store (let alone actually sell) is miniscule - under 10% in some areas and the stores have to pay for rubbish to be cleared away. So, in many instances, people's gifts to charity actually end up costing the charity money.

If this behaviour is the norm, then "Charity" is a misnomer. Instead of making a donation, giving a gift, making an offering, all of which imply some sort of good intention or sacrifice, many people are usng charity shops as an alternative to putting out the rubbish. Clearly they are not seriously considering whether the items offered up are saleable - if they believe that the people who buy from charity shops have such low standards it is a very sad indictment of the human race.

My suspicion is that most people don't actually stop to think. Their assumption is that instead of consigning an item to the rubbish, it is worth sending it via the charity shop just in case someone might want it. They don't stop to think of the poor dears who have to empty the binbags (sometimes with rubber gloves and long 'grabbers') but bask in a general feeling of satisfaction, based on their decluttering efforts and an unfounded assumption that someone in the local area will be glad of the filthy detritus they have cast off. As Mary pointed out, the fact that the charities post plastic bags like binbags through the doors, conveys an impression that the items to be put inside are akin to rubbish.

If instead, (as Ms Portas unsuccessfully tried to convince the Orpington locals in episode one) people were to see making a donation to a charity shop as akin to donating money - giving something of instrinsic value that imples some sacrifice, things would be very different.

So all you well-intentioned people, please stop to think before you fill that bag up and dump it on your doorstep or the in the doorway of your local thrift store, and ask yourself if seriously you would expect another human being to see value in the contents. Go back to your wardrobe, have another root around and choose one or two things that you think there is a possibility you might still want to wear yourself (an outfit that looks good, was quite expensive but is just too tight now?) and instead of letting it languish (it will never fit you again and you know that really, don't you!) give it up and let someone else enjoy it. That is charitable giving

Oh and please make sure anything you give is CLEAN!!!!!

Father's Day - thinking of role models

My dear old Dad died 20 years ago this year, so it's a long time since I have had to think about Father's Day gifts. Not that he was that bothered when he was alive, dismissing it as a piece of invented commercialism that did not have the longevity and stature of Mother's Day.

At Make it and Mend it we have been talking a lot about make and mend role models, since Hilary wrote her piece about her mother making dresses for her out of her Dad's old shirts.

My father was a great role model for DIY and gardening, despite the lack of a paternal role model himself as he lost his own dad when only 12 years old.

With Father's Day looming (at least in the UK it is - why does every country seem to celebrate these days at different dates?) we thought it would be a good idea to ask our readers to tell us about their own fathers. If like mine and Hilary's they came from a wartime generation, making do and mending will have been in the blood. But what about those of you with much younger parents? Did they also pass on the make and mend gene? Tell us about yours in Comments below.

A new lexicon for recycling

If you’re not ‘recycling’ some things at least some of the time, we have only one question? Which planet are you from and how recently did you arrive on Earth? It’s good to recycle but you also need to embrace a much broader set of principles to be a true Make it and Mender. Here’s our 're’ glossary to help you.

recycle – ensure that as much as possible is reused or reclaimed in some way. Thoughtful and careful rubbish sorting is all you need to achieve this.

Consider recycling as your last resort. The 2 ‘life steps’ that should always proceed recycling are reduce and reuse.

1. Cut your consumption by careful shopping, so, for example, less food goes off.
   
2. Compost any vegetables that can’t be used (because they’re too far gone for even soups and stews) and avoid packaged and wrapped items as much as possible.
3. Reuse as much as you can – such as plastic drinks bottles. Try and buy fewer bottled drinks by always taking a drink out with you.
   
4. Here are 2 things to do with plastic drinks bottles before you put them in the recycling:
   

• Use them again to carry a drink in!

• Cut the base off, remove the screw top and stick them (upside down) in the ground next to thirsty plants. Immerse about 2 to 3 inches of the upturned bottle into the ground. (You may also need to secure the bottle by driving a plant support into the ground and through the mouth of the bottle so it doesn’t fall over.) Water your plants via the bottle. This reduces the amount of water run off and directs the water towards to plant roots where it does more good.

We have some great tips to help you reduce and reuse >> Check out our Inspired recycling ideas
You can also find out more about >> Using leftovers , with a whole page dedicated to >> mashed potato tips.

upcycle – take something that was designed to be disposable and give it a second (hopefully more permanent) life and a higher value. The true principles of upcycling can be learned from, so called, ‘third world’ countries where upcycling skills have been developing for centuries.
Upcycling has been embraced as a clever way of dealing with our excessive consumption and waste - but beware. True upcycling is not about enthusing over abstract art created from paper coffee cups, only to carry on ordering takeaway (guilt free) lattes.
How to Upcycle:
As with recycling – the first step is reduce. If you do like your coffee from Starbucks, or Café Nero, take your own travel mug and get them to fill that.
And all of us should be campaigning to reduce the amount of items that are designed to be ‘disposable’ and or come with ‘built in obsolescence’.
Where we do need to upcycle, the emphasis should be on the practical first and the pretty second.

Here’s a great home and garden upcyling project: this comes courtesy of Anne’s cousin John who has been experimenting with using old tyres as planters.
The simplest way of using them is to stack the tyres (they need to be the same diameter) on top of each other and fill them with earth. “The weight of the tyres tends to keep them in place,” says John. They’re particularly great for growing potatoes as you can start with one or two tyres and sow your seed potatoes and then put another tyre on top and fill with earth, ensuring they get a good covering.
“The other great thing about tyre planters is it brings the height of the bed up to a level where I don’t have to bend down so much and it saves my back,” adds John. Chat up your local garage or scrap yard to acquire tyres, or ask for your old tyre back when you get a new tyre fitted.

There’s >> a useful article about upcycling on our website and >>tips for sorting your recycling

decycle.1 – this definition defines decycling as anti-recycling (possible irony), the purposeful disposing of rubbish to landfill or ‘spoiling’ recycling by mis-sorting items to make them unrecyclable. We hate this definition.

decycle.2 – the Make it and Mend it definition defines decycling as reducing the number of energy consuming processes we use to get from one point to another, or to turn one thing into another thing in the most energy-efficient, least wasteful way. We love this definition.
For example, we should rinse bottles and cans before putting them into recycling but we shouldn’t use fresh water to do this. That’s a waste of drinking water and the energy used to purify it. Instead, use old dishwater. Use water swilled around the first bottle to rinse out the second and so on.

downcycle – this is the opposite of upcycling and describes the process of turning things into new items which are of a lower quality and lower value.
Some things might be better suited to downcycling than upcycling (particularly if the upcycling alternative involves more energy and creates something decorative rather than useful).
And a lot of recycling is, in fact, downcycling. For example, paper recycling leads to a shortening of the paper fibres, which means that recycled paper is more likely to tear and is therefore a lower quality with more limited uses. And often new raw materials have to be added to recycled paper to make it useable. (Thanks to Grant for this insight.)
So, again, it’s very important to try and reduce and re-use paper waste before even thinking about recycling. Downcycling should be viewed as better than nothing.

Here’s a home downcycling project for carpets for you to consider if all else fails.
Old carpet often ends up in landfill. Start by seeing if it can be recycled after cleaning or dying a darker colour. Old, good quality fitted carpets can be cut into rugs and ‘whipped’ – the edges are bound professionally. If that’s too expensive, try edging the rug with hessian tape using strong twine and a very thick needle.
But carpets that don’t find a second life as carpets can be downcycled into weed barriers for gravel beds in the garden, or under paving stones. Old carpet – ideally, hessian backed and wool - can be laid over allotments that have become overgrown with weeds. But check with your allotment first. Some have banned carpet as people start the job and then don’t finish it, leaving the carpet to become weed infested. Don’t leave the carpet down for longer than a year or the weeds may grow through, making your job trickier.
• Some animal shelters may accept old carpet for bedding.
• Use pieces in the car to protect the fitted carpets from footwear or in the boot, particularly when taking garden refuse to the tip (for suitable recycling).
So what sort of "cycler" are you? Please tell us in the Comments section