Saving Money #2: Make Do and Mend

A little austerity chic is happening in my wardrobe right now. I have a weakness for dresses and did buy quite a few last year (didn’t blow my budget and paid cash, fyi) but this year I decided to cut back on my clothing budget and wear what I have in my closet. That includes remixing outfits and repairing anything damaged.

I am drawing the line at drawing on stockings though.

This green sweater is getting up there in age, it’s maybe six or seven years old. I wear it a lot during winter and have shaved it once or twice.

It has little holes at the neckline. I hate losing things I love and look good in (the sweater’s wool!) so I pulled out my needle and thread and attempted to close those suckers.

While I leave the complicated stuff to the professionals, I learned sewing basics in high school in form one. I can hem, darn and do a really sloppy buttonhole. I also remember having to make a pair of knickers in an ugly brown material so I guess I also know how to run elastic but it’s been years since I had to do that.

That cute collection of thread is from the dollar store. The package cost $2.00 and has 24 tiny spools of thread. The colours are more than your basic white/black/red/blue/grey. It has a green that was a pretty good approximate to my sweater. So at 10:00 p.m. I sat down and darned.

Not too bad! It should last another year or two before the pilling’s really bad. There’s only so many times you can shave a sweater before it starts looking like a hairnet.