Make do and Mend.

Well, I've spent the last few nights snipping and sewing stuff from the little scraps I've had lying around, and some of the pillowcases I obsessively collect for 10p from the local Sally Army ("It's only 10P!!!! I MUST have it!") I whizzed up some bunting for daughters room to brighten it up a bit (must snip that thread!), using pillowcases for some of the flags and bias tape, and some leftover quilt patches for the rest.

I snipped at the shrunken jumper to fashion it into a bag. It's not quite done, some applique to do, but it is a bag from a jumper, albeit an odd shaped one due to the armholes, but a bag nonetheless. I've mended my jeans and even saved all the little itty itty bits from my cutting mat for stuffing toys. I'm being tight, i'm mending and making do. It's partly part of my year of thrift (see previous posts about not buying any new clothes for a year: nearly there!) , and partly because I've been inspired, again, by my Nan, now passed on, whose sewing box I inherited in April but only recently picked up.

It is GORGEOUS. Not to look at, just your standard wooden box, one knob missing. Butinside there is a wealth of making-do. Alongside the box, I got a tub of crochet hooks, a tin of ribbons and ric-rac, a tin of elastic and fastenings, and a tub of needles and scissors. Nothing was ever thrown away by my nan. Every ribbon from every present was tucked away. Every sequin that came off saved. The cotton reels alone are amazing, some of them are wooden, and wound with silk thread that was made in Britain. But this little envelope I found truly amazing. A little selection of nylon and silk thread in stocking colours, wound round card, with their own matches attached to melt the threads together. Imagine. Not throwing away a stocking, but darning it and melting it, and using them till they dropped. Last night I took a leaf out of my nan's book and what I couldn't mend from my mending pile, I unwound or cut into patches for later, some old trousers are earmarked for a doorstop. God, even the words "mending pile" sound great, but kind of 1950's. Inspired by my Nan, and by how easy it was to not buy any clothes this year, I am going to do it again this coming year. A bit early for New Years Resolutions, I know, but really, one purchase of snowboots in a year was actually quite easy, once i'd gotten over the thrill of spending. And this year, I promise, will be even better. This year I will not only buy secondhand (my limit was £5.00 a week), I will REFASHION. Take a look at this lady, who did a dress a day, from charity shop jobs, every day for a year. Now if that isn't inspiring enough to get me to learn how to seam, nothing is. I WILL learn how to hem properly, I WILL use my nan's thread to sew up a storm from a size 20 charity shop dress, and I WILL, (maybe) learn to crochet).

And check out the "Mend and Make Do" thread on Netmums, where ladies are going crazy on their machines.

Conservatives smash childhood dreams shocker, and a cushion.

When I was little (or young, i'm still pretty little, height wise at least), I was desperate to be a showjumper like Harvey Smith, then I went through a phase of being a librarian and forcing mum to take books out all the time while I stamped them and fined her (none of my childhood books are untouched), and finally, a teacher phase, bossing my sister around and criticising her efforts. "NO! Do this NOW! No, no, don't cry, Mum will come, here is a biscuit".) And you know, apart from the showjumping, I DID do that. I was a childrens librarian for years, and then retrained as a teacher, which I loved, for years. I did what I wanted to do. Son is obsessed with levers, gears, mechanics. My dad is an engineer, In Law dad is an engineer, there is a clear obsessional path for him. Daughter is currently limited to doing whatever pees son off most. But whatever they want to do, I will say, "You CAN do it". Because really, they're bright, they're funny, they have drive, they can. Even if he still wants to be a policeman.

Except they can't. We will never, never, never have enough money to pay for degrees for our kids. Read that again. NEVER. This country now has the most expensive education in the world. Kids that are bright, from less well off families, will never get to University. The Conservative blurb may say "It's merely a debt...." blah blah" , but people who have no money do NOT get into debt. Imagine being an 18 year old from a poor background, and being told that your debt on leaving will be 40K, 3 years work for your dad. You wouldn't countenance it. Of course, it's probably different, if , like David Cameron, you are worth 19 million and you think this makes you Middle Class. I won't even mention Clegg, nobody can hear him from the cavernous recesses of Camerons passage anyway. Cameron just excuses any noise as being "something he ate".

This is what this government wants: education for the elite, the ones who a 40K debt means nothing to. Their dads earn it in a few months. I was the first person in my family to get to University, indeed, even finish school. I managed because I had no fees, and a grant. I repaid that generosity by doing public sector work for years. The State helped me, I help the state. I believed in the State. I put something back. They more than got their moneys worth from me, from the teaching in the East End alone, believe me. ("No, pupil, I cannot come and pick you up from Budgens for shoplifting. I am not your mother. I am your teacher. Oh. Alright. She's with you. And caught shoplifting. I'm on my way.")

No more. This week we learned that the local (and only) secondary school has lost it's Building Schools for the Future money. 9 million. This was to provide for more space and facilities. The school was built in 1938 for 500 students. It now has 1,350. The money has gone. Not needed, says the government. Not needed , says local bigwig Martin Curtis, and minister for children, no less, who also said that "screaming and shouting" won't do anything. Fine. We'll all just accept it then, shall we? And the fact that you've just more or less told our kids that they're worth much less to this government than the kids of the small enclave of wealthy Free school parents. And the 1,000 homes you've just agreed will be built here, to add to our hugely overcrowded school and village with no facilities and schools that are too small. ( Strange that all the local Conservative councillors are so keen on the idea, possibly it has something to do with the huge links to the building trade many of them have. ) This government sucks big time.

The students round here already perform terribly. Fenland has the lowest tertiary education take up of ANY English area. It has the lowest parental tertiary take up. It is a rural, on the land work, area. And a safe, very safe, Tory seat. Nobody votes, apart from the landowners, and me. Everyone else is too apathetic, working on the land they don't own, or in the middle of the Fens picking leeks for minimum wage, for 14 hours, while the voting goes on. So why should the local MP Mr Steve Barclay care? He doesn't. He went to Rugby. He is a golden boy who replies to my letters with the party line and never holds a surgery in my village, knowing full well there is no bus on earth that will get me, my kids and my hatred to his actual surgery. So i've written to him. (Again. See previous posts to hear about my effort to build up enough asinine replies that I can furnish my chicken coop with them. And they can shit on him. I know it's childish.) Would he like to come and tell my son that his local schools are falling to bits, with the government sanction? Would he like to come and explain why my kids will never get to tertiary education? Would he buggery. He goes to the opening of a crisp packet, but he won't come here.

And because i've made myself really cross again, here's a picture of some stuff I sewed last night: a taggie for an upcoming baby (NOT mine, dear me NO), a pot stand, and a pink(ish) cushion for daughters room. I'm getting into the swing of the machine now. I even wound a bobbin. (clap, clap, clap) Once I get good enough, I may even attempt to sew a tiny mannikin of our MP as a pincushion.

We bunked off and made gingerbread

It was snowing this morning. So much snowing, in fact, that the 45 minute walk to playgroup and back again appealed about as much as kissing Michael Gove. Still, I tried. We dressed in 4 billion layers each, and walked with arms and legs swaddled in thermals to the buggy, which a) daughter refused to get in and b) wouldn't go in the snow anyway. Both children are born for the sunnier climes of South America or Spain, not rural Fenland, much to Yorkshire husbands disgust. By the time we had struggled down the road, buggy veering from left to right as I failed to discover the wheel lock, with my best impression of bad mother voice shrieking "Come ON! It's just a bit of snow!" whilst son wailed despondantly "It's getting in my EYES! My EEEEYYYYES!", I realised that this was not going to happen. For one, I couldn't really shout "Come ON!" for an hour in a blizzard, and secondly, daughter had flung herself from the buggy into the snow and was weeping. We turned back and happily plunged into the house again.

By 10.30 we had eaten all the crumpets and were shouting at each other. So we made gingerbread. This is simply the best gingerbread ever, it is exceptionally more-ish and, if you don't mind your kids getting dental caries for the sake of an hours peace, the kids will eat all of it if you let them. It's another wet/dry recipe, my absolute favourite type as they are virtually idiot and chidl proof. You will need:

Dry stuff: 225g plain flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp bicarb, 1 and 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Sift.

Wet stuff: 55g butter, 115g soft brown sugar, 115g black treacle. Melt all together and leave to cool a bit. + (1 tbsp milk if needed for dough).

Mix it all together, until it turns into a dough. If it's too sticky and tough, add a bit of milk. Roll out to 5mm thickness and cut out shapes. I usually get about 25-30 assorted snails, squirrels and stars from this. Bake at gas mark 5 for 10-15 minutes, but a lot depends on the shape of the biscuit. Eat. All of them.

Whilst they were eating, I finally decided to crack on with using the sewing machine, which has been sitting and intimidating me. Having forced MIL to wind me lots of bobbins (I simply cannot do that yet), I grasped the nettle and a big stack of the cheap vintage pillowcases I keep buying because they are 10p, and decided to make some skirts for daughter, who thankfully doesn't care what she looks like yet, being 2. she will be in pillowcase outfits until she comes weeping to me and shows me photos of all her friends in Reebok or whatever, and even then i'll still moan.

So I chopped the top and end off of one fetching pillowcase featuring cars and bikes (she WILL not be girly, not if it's up to me. No pink here!) until it was a good skirt length. Then I turned it wrong side out, and straight stitched a pocket for elastic. At the bottom, I took a leftover bit of binding and sewed it around the hem, turned it right side out, and then sewed it around again. Wonky stitching covered. For skirt 2 I chose a green pillowcase, did the same thing, but this time without the binding edge and some ribbon instead, once i'd gotten the hang of sewing straighter.

Both skirts are very wonky and very amateur, but they took an hour of gingerbread eating and broke my machine virginity, so i'll always love them.