Make do and mend - how did your parents or grandparents exemplify this

[AceAcer]

I've been clearing out my mum's house recently, and came across so many amateurish repairs (a dish held together with sellotape!), a darning mushroom and of course the tea stained saucer for all the teabags to go in because "there's far more than one cup in that!".

It got me to thinking more about our disgraceful disposable culture now, and I wondered if there were any quirky or funny examples of frugality out there, which maybe need resurrecting (or not, as the case may be).

My dad riveting a sheet of aircraft grade metal to the side of my granny’s cooker when it had scorched through the casing.

She said it worked fine and refused to get new one just coz it was threatening to incinerate the cupboard next to it.

Lasted until she passed away.

My Grannie could darn a pair of socks like nobody I’ve ever met! Literally a 2p sized hole, neatly stitched without puckering or tightening, with tiny tiny little perfect stitches.

She’d also turn old clothes into new things, like a skirt of hers which was stained, she’d turn into a dress for me when I was wee, or clothes for my teddies.

She had a very old, very expensive set of crockery which was glued back together so many times I’m surprised it’s still going (she got married in 1948 and it’s still on the go!)

My mum was very good with repurposing things. “Santa” brought me a cot for my doll one year that was actually an apple crate lined with carpet underlay and then covered in an old pink bedsheet. I loved that cot! My dad was a joiner by trade and made pretty much everything in our house. Including a rocking horse and a dolls house for me and DSiS. They built the house up from a dilapidated shell so they had lots of skills between the two of them and knew how to do it on a very tight budget. I wish I had half the skills they did.

My mother had and used a darning mushroom. She also used to save all the slivers of soap and make them into a new bar.

My Grannie had a darning mushroom! Wooden thing, that screwed off at the top, I couldn’t remember what it was called

She made me a dolls house one year out of a cardboard box, tin foil, old wallpaper and cut up carrier bags for curtains. I bloody loved that thing!

She also used to save all the slivers of soap and make them into a new bar.

I do that! DC don’t understand it. They’ll learn. Brexit looming, the glory days of plentiful soap are over

My nan once showed me one of her pristine saucepans. There was “86” stamped on the bottom because that was the year they were bought. Then she told me how she shined them sometimes. Shining your saucepans!

When she died last year, my mum gave me a bunch of her kitchen things to replace some of mine, which were getting tatty, including that saucepan. I can’t use it! The idea of it being wrecked in my possession (and it would - I don’t hand wash or shine my saucepans) was just too awful. The guilt! It’s in a cupboard now, reminding me of how house proud she was and how I could never live up to those standards

My granny was a great darner and taught my dad and uncle to mend, I was astonished when dad mended a gaping hole in my school tights perfectly!
My gran could make toys from anything, I had a great time playing with the button jar and wooden pegs made into aeroplanes or dolls.
I agree we don't have the skills any more, my great grandad also made all my dad's toys from wood, trains and soldiers and cars. I shall have to stick with the button jar for my grandchildren!

Turned collars and cuffs on school and work shirts
Made clothes out of necessity as a lot cheaper
Cut open toothpaste and other tubes to make sure you scrape the most out of it
Made own jam with foraged fruit
Cooked from scratch all the time
Allotment for veg
Darned and mended clothes
Saved the ends of soap
Used old tshirts and pants as household rags

I do not have the sewing skills :-(

Me either serbska. I’m learning to sew and it’s lot harder than I expected. I can knit and have made things for DC and friends DC. I’m going to go through my old knitwear and see if i can reuse the yarn.

Made clothes out of necessity as a lot cheaper
That's where today is so very different. I make dresses and skirts for my DD, but not because they are cheaper - even the fabric is much more expensive than Tesco/Asda/Primark etc. I do it because they are different, and don't have brands on, arn't pink and I enjoy it and the DDs love it.
I do some patching (DH's trouser knees), and turn up trouser legs too.

My mother did mending, sewing, knitting, grow-your-own, jams etc as a SaHM. I do less because it's on top of a full time job (and I haven't yet learned to knit/make jam). I can afford to buy new when I suspect she couldn't, but I don't always like to.

My gran knitted, sewed and darned, she lived through two world wars and knew what it was like to have nothing. Meat was a luxury not a necessity, home baking, making toys etc. My dad did all his diy, why pay someone to do what you can do yourself, no unnecessary use of the car, he would walk to collect me from guides, youth club. Never threw stuff away, if something electric broke beyond repair he always took the plug off, jars were washed and used for storage of odd screws, nails, washers fuses.
Things were handed down if they still worked.

My mum used to make all my clothes and her own. And then make me a dress out of an old one of hers when it was of no further use to her. (She was a brilliant seamstress). She also used to "turn" sheets .... ie, cut them down the middle and sew the edges together so the more worn areas were at the edges. Her beautiful run-and-fell seams were a work of art and perfectly comfy to sleep on.

My gran used to pull down old sweaters and re-knit the yarn into new ones. We often had jumpers with different stripes on colour in them as the old sweaters were mixed up and knitted together.

Old sheets turned sides to middle.
When they were too worn out for that, then made into ironing board covers
Then when worn out from that, used as the filling in pot holders/oven gloves.

Different world
(I can darn a sock though [proud emoticon])

I just realised my nana wore the same three tank tops around the house for decades. As one wore out, she'd pull it apart and reknit it into a 'new' one.

but the bets is that my Granny made patchwork pieces out of all the old stuff, and then sewed them together to make lovely patchwork quilts.

I can do patchwork, but now we use new fabrics in co-ordinating colours. Not the same.

When sheets were wearing thin they were "turned sides to middle" so you had a seam down the middle but no matter.

My mother used to knit us two jumpers in the same wool but different colours. When we grew out of them, she'd unravel them and knit a bigger stripey jumper, like Mrs Expo's gran.

She also made us witches outfits from the linings of old curtains dyed black, and turned newspapers into witches hats.

Socks were always darned and mended, knickers were re-elasticated (in the days when they had a proper top), worn out towels were cut up to make flannels, soap was melted down to make new bars, old tights were used to hang onions from the ceiling of the outhouse for storage through the winter, crockery was mended, and all the vegetables were grown from seed saved from the previous year.

I doubt if many people nowadays have the skills to do much of that.

Have you got yourself a cuppa aceacer
I could write the book.
No shelves put up in my parents home ever fell down...they were held in place with structures akin to the forth bridge
I have a huge aversion to wood , probably because my dad used so much of it around the house. He was a heath Robinson alright.
In the downstairs bathroom we had a motorbike and an aeroplane , a large remote controlled one that he built himself... of course

When my mum got a job after 20 years staying at home looking after my dad, the first thing she bought was a new carpet, to replace the perfectly serviceable she was sick of that had lasted 20 years
That carpet was 20 years old when dad died...it was Axminster and refused to wear out.

Mum got rid of it and got a nice pale cream one and a new leather suite when he passed away
Don’t get me wrong it was a clean and tidy house, but dad wouldn’t get rid of. Quality to replace with modern junk. Even though, he’d had to put the telly over a glue patch when he was tinkering on. Thank god, he wasn’t tinkering on in the middle of the room 😱
Dad was a skip diver...nothing was ever wasted.
Bless him..I’d love to him back...I think we’d understand each other a lot better now
He was over the moon when I gave him a grandson 👍

I have a darning mushroom, and use it. I mend pockets in jeans, and mend clothes. I squidge slivers of soap together. I cut open toothpaste tubes. I make rag rugs with old clothes. I am my own grandmother...

My Nan was a child in the war. She hated the 'make do and mend' culture and enthusiastically embraced the throw away society as soon as humanly possible! She was always chucking stuff out, buying new, redecorating, updating etc She associated recycling and reusing with poverty and could never understand why people would choose to do it if they didn't have to. My Dad's inherited a lot of her attitude.

I guess if it's enforced on you for a long period of time it's liberating to able to reject it.

How do you squidge soap slivers together? I remember Bettaware selling something called a “soap miser” when I was a kid, but I haven’t managed to find anything like it!

One of my prized possessions is my gran's button box. It contains an eclectic mix, their history fascinates me.
Which child wore the cardigan which hadlittle yellow buttons with red ducks on them?
Why are there 17 shiny buttons with a railway company logo when no one worked on the railway?
What did the dress look like that fastened with mother of pearl buttons?
What garment did the decidedly 60s plastic buttons come off?
She must had simply snipped the buttons off as there is still cotton thread in most of them. I presume buttons were relatively expensive and so kept.

She also mended sheets when they wore thin, by turning the outside edges in and making a seam ...resulted in a lumpy line to lie on in the middle of the bed!

DF used to use yoghurt pots as plant pots, to start off seeds, and the plants then went into the back garden which grew a lot of our summer veg. DM would also freeze and chutney a lot of the surplus. I do remember a large blue barrel that DF drilled lots of holes in, in circular patterns, to make larger circles to put strawberry plants into - as a very large strawberry planter.

DM also sewed a lot of our clothes, and mended things (including lots of knees in my trousers in particular!), and did some knitting. I remember 1 DSis getting a Doll's bed made from a wooden tomato crate and remnants and being much loved for years...it had a headboard and everything! And the button jar was a wonderous thing. Although there wasn't a huge amount of darning - that was something that stopped pretty quickly once they could afford to replace things better, while lots of other repairing continued on.

DM cooked from scratch most of the time, and baked, and made jams/chutnies etc. We almost never had a store bought cake unless we had visitors (who brought it with them).

They painted the house numerous times, and wallpapered occasionally (paint was much preferred). They used to do some tiling and a lot of electricals and plumbing stuff, and even bigger construction jobs if necessary, although they had friends to call on to help with bigger jobs. Anytime there was a building job being done, DF would do a lot himself. And he loved doing woodwork for enjoyment as well as the DIY needs.

Any felled trees locally were chopped up with a chainsaw, and then with an axe to make logs for the fire.

There were biscuit tins and old jam jars full of nails and screws and bolts and bits of string and all sorts out in the garage - and lots of those got used over time.

Mum used to knit all of our woolens, and when we grew out of them she'd unpick the stitching and unravel the wool, roll it up into balls. Then she'd knit a new jumper or cardigan. She'd add stripes in a different colour to extend the amount of wool so she could make a bigger size.

@Haworthia some soap is more squidgeable than others, but generally I hold the two bits together and squidge hard.