to darn?

[MrsSeanBean]

I was annoyed to find dh had thrown away a pair of socks. His excuse "they were getting 'worn' in one corner". Even if there had actually been a hole, I could easily have mended it.

Easy come, easy go as my mother used to say. I once sponsored a child in Africa who had no socks at all and was thrilled to have a pair (and didn't even care if they matched).

(...While on this subject, I have been sniggered at for re-using wrapping paper. FFS - I could not give a damn what wrapping paper is used. Why not use newspaper? All this glittery crap and stupid little rosettes made in China are ethically wrong anyway. Bah humbug...)

I am not mean. I am not desperately short of money. I am not a tree hugger. But I still 'make do and mend'.

I lament the lack of thrift in our throwaway society.

YANBU its nice to know that someone who is not short of money is not wasteful with it either.

YANBU

But my darning is so awful that it makes the socks all lumpy and uncomfortable so I have given up.

I am doing ok on the recycling wrapping paper front though!

YANBU. I can't darn, but I do sew up laddered tights, if the ladder's above the knee and I save all sorts of things to be re-used. There's a tremendous satisfaction in being able to produce something perfect for a school project without having to go and buy it.

Like you, I'm not desperately hard up or obsessively green, I just enjoy being careful/thrifty. It just seems like the right thing to do. Did your parents live through the war? I definitely learned this from my Mum who never throws anything that could "come in" away, but my friends who have younger parents think I'm weird.

YANBU. Thanks to a recent infestation of clothes moths, I am now rather good at darning sweaters although (guilty confession) I do tend to chuck out dh's holey socks. My parents too lived through the war and my parents' garage is full of jars of screws and bits of string 'which may come in useful one day' and even furniture and wood which my dad has pulled out of skips.

Thrift is now officially cool, I thought!

Yes my parents did live through the war... but so did dh's!

He's just naturally wasteful I think.

(Hmmm, food for thought there for a possible 'nature or nurture' thread!)

Yes, I guess it can go either way. You can either absorb it or react against it.

Consider the example of my dh and his sister. The background is that their parents were teenagers when the war started and were very thrifty; much of their furniture was inherited/passed on from friends, they once darned the stair carpet where it was getting worn at the edge of each stair and we were watching an old cine film of my husband being bathed as a baby when I realised that the same towel was still in the bathroom 40 years later! My husband now has similar attitudes, whereas my sister in law insists on buying everything new from shops (even though the quality of her furniture of far shoddier than the stuff we've bought in junk shops) and had to be convinced to use the recycling bin provided by the council.

is far shoddier (much like my typing)

YANBU. I darn lots, (have 2 eight yr old girls and a rumbunctious kitten).

Make do and mend is far healthier than the "I want lots of new STUFF!" culture that has sprung up. I hate it with a passion.

My neighbour laughed at me yesterday because i was sewing the seam on a winter coat rather than buy a new one. It's perfectly bloody functional, why buy a new one for the sake of 5 mins.

LOL Idrank.

I have a lovely top qaulity wool coat that I paid a lot of money for 12 years ago. It still looks good on, but it now has a patchwork lining. Will be a long time before it's replaced though.

Still wearing a coat from 15 years ago. It cost a lot then, but was a classic. I also believe that if you (have the money to) invest in better quality things, they work out better value in the long run, ie £100 per year for a coat is £1500 - and my coat certainly cost nowhere near that!

MerryFlippin - don't get me started on food wastage... !!

Hi Spirits. You can buy excellent bargains which are being sold off cheaply because they have a miniscule hole in the seam and are therefore presumably useles to 99% of buyers! Visit a Hobbs outlet.

I mend our clothes - have never thrown an article of clothing away. Anything we don't need I give to charity.

have been there already mrs SB

Etsy is another good one.

Haven't come across Etsy, Spirits. Will investigate, ta.