Green Things

This past week I caught up on watching Hugh's War on Plastic, it is pretty unsettling stuff I have to say and a lot of it just leaves you feeling a bit helpless.  We try to do our best but as the show highlighted, the shops don't make it easy for you and there is also the fact that as fast as we are trying to reduce our consumption the manufacturers are setting targets to increase output of the stuff.

I was asked this week by a colleague to make some reusable scrubbies for taking off make-up, she had bought some from a shop and wanted more.  I used materials I had and made twelve small circular ones and a little drawstring bag to wash them in.  I had a nice photo to share but yesterday my phone did an update and now everything is in the wrong place and all the photo's taken before yesterday have transferred small and out of focus!  I am disappointed about that and will get my son to look at it when he is home later, as I am not one of the phone generation it will take me twice as long to sort it.

This evening I have been altering t-shirts for another colleague, she buys them and then likes them shorter, with smaller sleeves and a lower neck.  It is one way of getting what you want, a lot of people won't shop charity shops but if they did they would see that you can buy things you love cheaply then get them altered.  It is still often cheaper than buying new and you can have them fitted to you.

It seems there is a lot of action from the public on reducing our consumption but very little from the government or big business. I still see a lot of unnecessary  packaging everywhere and lots of plastic that doesn't serve a purpose.  My husband just feels I think too much about these things but there are too many people who don't think about it at all perhaps.  A lot of the plastic free shops are in affluent areas also and I would imagine many people struggling on a tight budget are more worried about buying  affordable food for the week than they are about our long term futures on the planet.

On a lighter note summer term is almost over, there is lots of winding down going on, people moving on and new faces appearing at work.  I was sad to say goodbye to a colleague today, she  started at the same time as me and has been wonderful to work with.  I am sure we will be seeing her again soon.  She very kindly bought me this plant and I will leave you with an image of that after my initial grumpy start over the state of the planet.

A Day Out

We have had a bit of a change today and went out for the afternoon, my husband had booked a day off so we thought we would make the most of it.  We went  to Cleethorpes, we haven't been there for years and it is only an hour away. As it is a Friday we thought it wouldn't be too busy as most people go for the weekend and don't set off until Friday teatime.  It was still quite busy as lots of people were there with young children, there were also a couple of school trips on the beach.  Unfortunately we couldn't take the dogs down onto the sand but walked along the front instead.

 It has been a good day for the weather, the sun did keep disappearing behind a cloud and it was very breezy but I have to say that is better for the dogs.  If it had been blazing sunshine we would have had to get them out of the heat after a short walk, but with the wind and the cloud we managed a good walk.

There was also a lovely boating pond (no boats on it!) full of ducks that we walked around and had our picnic there. We were very prepared today, icepacks in the rucksack, sandwiches, tomatoes, crisps and drinks.  We also managed to park around the corner from one of the main car parks for free, very frugal!

This one clearly is clearly after some food, we didn't feed it as we didn't have  appropriate food.

 This area was beautiful and very well kept.

There was a path leading to a nature reserve, we didn't take that as it involved walking through long grass and two of us had bare legs, I am a bit cautious of getting a tick from long grass having seen one they are hideous things!

We didn't choose to walk around the town after but headed home before the work traffic started to build up, we always try and plan any outing around the least possible traffic.

When I got home I managed to get a load of weeding done and re-pot one of my planters with some of my seedlings from the greenhouse.  I have quite a lot of black flies/aphids on some of my plants I am finding the only solution where there are so many is to remove the affected plants.  It is not too bad as I have spent very little and the garden is full of colour at the moment, all the seed planting paid off. 

Sewing Blue

I think I need to shake things up a bit when choosing my fabric, I have just set out the fabric for my latest make and once again it is blue.  When I am choosing it I must just go into default mode as it is only when it arrives that I realise I have once again chosen the blue option. A couple of my makes were featured on the Minerva Crafts Blog on Sunday 7th (I've had to amend this as I was given a different date!) so if you would like a look go have a look on the blog, you'll have to go back a bit,   but they are of course blue.  Some of you have seen a peek of these before...

This top.

This dress also.

I have to say they have had a bit of wear already, the dress is comfy and the top goes well with jeans, if you want the full details just follow the link above to Minerva. So as I said this came to mind as I was planning my current make, this fabric...

Maybe I can let myself off the hook a little as I did make the green and grey cami on Friday but that was more of a using up small pieces project.   I wonder if any of you find yourselves going into auto pilot and making the same sorts of choices with fabric or wool. It does make sense to shop what you will wear of course but do we sometimes get stuck in a colour rut without realising it?

Here is a little compilation of some of the other blue makes, not including the one above, so as you can see a bit of a theme.  It also seems to have been the last year or so. Note to self to be more adventurous with the fabric choices.

I have just read 'Grit: Why Passion and Resilience are the Keys to Success ' by Angela Duckworth this past week.  It was an interesting read and makes a lot of sense when you consider some of the people who go on to do great things, they are not always the people who were outstanding students or particularly gifted.

 Following on from that one I read 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' by Cal Newport, this was also enjoyable but not always realistic.  A lot of the career stories mentioned  were of people in fields where there is a lot of room for growth and promotion.  While it is always preferable to be doing your best in anything you do, late hours, working and taking no holidays as a life is dedicated to a certain job has seen some people cast aside redundant after many years of service.  Some are simply overlooked no matter what while others may progress  by doing very little, but have the connections, say the right things and so on.  I think in some cases circumstances just fall right for some and other times life just doesn't go that way.   This particular author is very interesting and has achieved a lot, I have another book of his on my to read list and I find his ideas fascinating.  I just think we have to be prepared for the fact that unfortunately good work does sometimes go unnoticed and that is just the way it is, but to not let it ruin the next venture because there will always be something else.  This reminds me of what I mentioned a couple of weeks ago regarding exam results.  Young people need to be aware that there are many paths, some careers may not work out and some will, plus our plans can and will change.  To be believe in a sole dedication to one thing or else is quite dangerous. What do you think?