Recently I decided to make a few new tops for the summer, and I wore them all on three days in a row. (The two pairs of shorts you see are both altered/refashioned, so they get a place as me-made. The first was thrifted and I altered the fit and replaced the buttons. The second Read More…
Me-Made-May 2017 | Day 1
For the first day of Me-Made-May, I wore a new dress. I made this recently because the blue version of the same pattern, which I made last year, got so much wear. Oddly, it was the thing I always wanted to wear on grocery shopping day – odd because a dress is not typical shopping attire Read More…
Me-Made-May 2017: Plans, a Clothing Funk, and Thoughts about Sewing
I will be participating in Me-Made-May for the third year in a row now! This is a sewing challenge hosted by sewing blogger Zoe, in which participants pledge to wear handmade garments during the month of May and, optionally, share their outfits online. Traditionally, I’ve blogged about a few of my outfits and I’ve also enjoyed Read More…
Compost Success
Do you remember the story about my attempt to compost? In that post, I mentioned that I had built a ‘soil factory’ in a bin on my balcony, in the hope of producing usable compost for potted plants, all made from our own kitchen waste. The bin was plagued by flies, however, and over the winter Read More…
Cloth Diapers: Are They Cheaper? Are They Greener?
Since I often write about reducing waste and general homemaking, it might be strange that I haven’t yet written about cloth diapers. The main reason why, however, was that this subject can veer in all kinds of bad directions. For example: boring and tedious, holier-than-thou, overwhelming, judgmental, guilt-inducing. Not only that, but despite being very Read More…
A Year of ‘Zero Waste’
It’s now been a year since I started my zero waste project last February. When I mentioned this to Mike, he couldn’t believe it had been that long; I’m taking that as a good sign that it hasn’t been too catastrophic for our household! Since it has now been a full year that I’ve been trying Read More…
Useful Sewing Lately
Small, useful sewing projects have been my favourites lately. For example, I converted two pairs of old pyjamas into some cloths that we use for cleaning baby hands and face after a meal. They are very raggy because I left the edges un-hemmed. These cloths are square and each is two layers of flannel sewn together Read More…
Zero Waste: The Composting Saga
The end of this saga is that we compost our food scraps. But how we got there is an eight months’ story of failure, flies, stink and slop. In fact some of the flies are still with us today, but I think their days are numbered. It began last year, a few months into my zero Read More…
January’s Project: More Careful Purchasing
This month, I am going to pay closer attention to my shopping habits. I’m allowed to buy things as usual, but I aim to keep two detailed records: Keep an ongoing wish list of things I want, including those little thoughts that pop up and flit away as quickly – ‘I should try that soap’, Read More…
Konmari: What I’ve Learned After Discarding
I’ve purposefully waited a few weeks to write about this, because after completing the discard phase of the KonMari method, I wanted to mull over the experience. It took me a little over 15 weeks to go through everything in the house, and it’s now been about a month since I finished. Here’s what I learned. Read More…