Make do and mend in the credit crunch

I suppose everything was much better 'in days of old'. Mars bars were definitely larger, policeman were taller and older and more things were hand made. My Mum's gran lived with them for many years and was a constant stream of knitting, as was her Mum who gave me a lovely green and white striped scarf for middle school. So ambitious was her knitting, it kept at least half my class warm as it curled around a small tribe of us huddling in the playground in winter. 

Anyhoo, I missed that whole make-do-and-mend thing which does sound like a much better way than the whole pay-nothing-work24hoursaday-vietnam production process which we seem to have at the moment.  

(see North Tyneside Libraries site for more details)

What is impressive I think is that the good old US of A has stolen a bit of a march on the UK. How they managed that when we have the Womens' Institute and even knitted breakfast cereals I will never know, but good on them for that. Hand Made Nation is now out as a movie or you can catch the original blog written by Faythe Levine. I was a bit taken by their sew pattern on Etsy so thought I would come up with my own version for the UK, with slightly more tea.

Comments please. As soon as I have worked out how to sew, I'm going to give it a go. Especially as my lovely old pair of Howies jeans gave up the ghost at the weekend so need patching together - you cannot die jeans, I love you! Ahem, I mean they fit really well, that's all.

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